If You Knew My Infinite Charm
by agelade
Summary: When Lassiter is even more Lassterian than usual, Shawn takes an interest. Has nothing to do with his ex-wife coming to Shawn and Gus with a case. Nope, nada. Spoilers for anything up to the end of Season Four, to be safe. Alt Shassie Ending.
1. Chapter 1: The Traditional Romantic

**1990**

"That's right, Guster," Shawn seethed, peering out through a gap in the fence across the street from his best friend's house. "Hide your guilt, traitor."

"Shawn," whispered a voice at his ear. Shawn jumped and whirled around, heaving a sigh of irritation. "What are you doing out here?" his father continued.

"Nothing."

"Nothing huh." His dad crouched behind him, tilting his head in that no-nonsense way that meant Shawn was about to get another wisdom-filled life-lesson. "You two fighting?"

"He stole my -" Shawn stopped himself short. "Something. From me."

His dad raised his brows knowingly. "That doesn't sound like something Gus would do."

Shawn glued his eyes to the Guster house and shrugged.

"Does it?" his dad insisted.

"It had to be him."

"But in your gut, you know it wasn't."

Shawn sighed again in resignation. "I don't know why Gus would steal something from me. He's my best friend. I can't believe it. But there's no one else-"

"Look, kid," Henry interrupted. "Gus is your partner. And when the integrity of your partner is in question, you always-" He poked Shawn in the chest. "_Always_ go with your gut, until evidence comes up. Now, do you really think Gus took your plane?"

Shawn looked chagrined. "No," he moped. "I guess not. Hey, wait- How did you-"

Henry stood and slid his sunglasses back on. "It's my plane now, buster. I told you not to fly it in the house, and now you you're gonna sand and restain every nick in the woodwork. Should take most of the summer. Better get over there and mend some fences if you want him to help you." His dad tilted his head at the Guster's house, then walked away, shaking his head.

**Present**

"Gus, I'm telling you, there's no way all those teeth are real."

"Shawn, unless you're the man's dentist, you have no way of knowing that. Hello Juliet."

Juliet narrowed her eyes at the pair and got up from her desk. "Hi guys. What are you doing here?"

"Jules, settle a bet-"

"We do _not_ have a bet-"

"Gary Busey's teeth. Real, or _crazy_ enthusiastic dentist?"

Juliet pursed her lips, suppressing a laugh. She looked at Gus.

"We're on a case," Gus said. "And we do not have a bet. And they're real. That man has more dental integrity in his left pinky than you have in your entire body Shawn."

"Dude, don't be ridiculous. How can you have dental integrity in your pinky."

"Guys!" Juliet broke in, glancing toward Lassiter's desk. "Seriously. Do you need something?"

Shawn followed her glance and his face broke into a grin. "Why yes, we do." He took only two steps toward the Head Detective before Juliet's hand was around his arm, stopping him and whirling him around. "Have you been working out?" he said indignantly. "Seriously." He rubbed his arm.

Juliet ignored him and glanced at Lassiter again. "Just stop. Whatever you're doing. Whatever you think you're going to say to him, just ... stop."

Shawn made a face, surprised. "Did something happen to his car?"

"I wish," Juliet murmured. "He's just been..." She head tilted them over to her own desk behind the pillar and out of Lassiter's view.

"Yeah, I know," Shawn said darkly. "Did you know he wrote me a ticket for having my bike three inches into the firelane out front?"

"You were parked on the sidewalk, Shawn," Gus corrected.

"He's been under a lot of pressure," Juliet tried to argue. She took in the look on Shawn's face and relented. "Okay. He's just being Carlton. But he's being, you know. _More_ Carlton than usual. Just ... lay low for a while, okay? Whatever's eating him, he's taking it out on _everyone_."

"Even you, Jules? That _is_ strange," Shawn jibed.

"Yes, it is," she insisted, losing patience. "And you know it. I know you like to spar, but Lassiter isn't playing with a fencing foil these days."

"What-?"

"It's a practice sword, Shawn." Gus rolled his eyes.

"Oh."

"I'm just worried he might..."

"What. Take a swing? Aw, Jules. I didn't know you cared so much. Why don't we talk about this over dinner?"

Juliet blew out a breath. "I'm not worried about _you_, Shawn. He'd ruin his career."

Shawn sighed and rolled his eyes. "Lassie wouldn't-"

"Wouldn't what?"

The three of them froze at the sound of the Head Detective's voice. Shawn spun to face him. "Mind if we brought you guys dinner, I was going to say. Chinese? Indian? Pizza? Gus?"

Gus nodded eagerly. "We were just on our way out to-"

"But you just got here," Lassiter said doubtfully, poking at their story.

"To see if you guys wanted anything," Shawn improvised.

"And you couldn't use the phone?"

"We uh..."

"We also wanted your expert advice on a case," Gus said.

Lassiter narrowed his eyes at the both of them, obviously sensing something amiss. "My _expert_ advice?"

Shawn grimaced slightly. Expert advice? Nice way to butter the guy up, but the only thing Shawn knew for sure Lassie was an actual expert on was the Civil War, and even he couldn't cook up a weirdo case involving the Civil War. Not one Lassie hadn't hired him onto, anyway. So... maybe a grain of the truth. "Okay. You got us."

"Shawn-" hissed Gus, elbowing him in the ribs.

"Expert's a little strong. We're buttering you up, of course, so that when we ask for your help on this case of ours, you'll give it to us."

Lassiter's face melted out of charmed doubt into abject irritation. "Solve your cases on your own damned time," he growled, then stalked off toward his apparent initial destination, the Little Boys' Room.

"Well that went well," Shawn said.

"He didn't hit you," Gus agreed.

Juliet rolled her eyes. "You guys have to get out of here."

"Okay, but first I need you to answer a question for me. Seriously, Gary Busey. Am I the only one who sees it?"

"Shawn."

"Gus is right: Gary's teeth aren't the real issue here. Like I said, we have a case. But..." He looked toward the Men's room.

"You mean you really did come here for his expert advice? Why didn't you just ask him when he was standing here?"

"You were the one who said not to say whatever I was planning to say," Shawn pointed out.

Juliet rolled her eyes. "Well is there anything _I_ can help you with?"

"Unfortunately, these questions can only be answered by a tallish rogue of a man with eyes of steel and hair of scrubbrush. Sorry, Jules."

Juliet rolled her eyes and sat down at her desk. "Well then, I've got work to do."

"Oh come on, Jules. It's Friday night. Put away the mayhem and murder! Embrace the may_be_ and ... mur... maids- Go out! Is what I'm saying."

"I'm not going out with you," she huffed.

"Oh, I'm staying here. At least until Lassie's out of the sh-Little... Boy's Room ow Gus." Shawn patted his side where Gus had elbowed him _again_ and smiled winningly.

"All right, that's it," Juliet said with a note of impatient finality. She tossed her pen to her desk top and stood, grabbing her bag from her desk drawer. "We're leaving."

"So soon?" Vick said.

All three of them whirled to face the Chief. "Uh," Shawn stalled. "No. Jules has a lot of work to do, as you can see."

Vick smiled thinly. "Mr. Spencer, is there something we can do for you?"

"Just came to see-"

"Are you still here?"

"That guy," Shawn finished, spinning on his heel toward Lassiter, who was bearing down on them with a scowl.

"Damnit Spencer I am about one millimeter away from personally showing you the door-!"

"Detective!" Vick warned.

Lassiter froze, mid-jab, marshaling his composure. When he seemed seconds from just letting it go and passing them by, Shawn made a face and said, "Dude, we've worked together _four years_ and you're still trying to get rid of me? Is it that crime is getting solved? Do you not like putting murderers behind bars?"

"Shawn-!" Juliet's eyes went wide. Gus elbowed him _hard_ in the ribs. Lassiter looked stricken for half a moment before rage twisted his face.

"Okay," Shawn agreed, shaking his head in frustration. "That was the wrong thing to say. I-" He paused, narrowing his eyes as he studied Lassiter's face. But before he could come to any conclusions, Vick cut through the powder keg.

"Mr. Spencer, Mr. Guster, you haven't been hired by the department. Please leave. Detective, with me."

Lassiter gave Shawn one last evil look before turning stiffly to follow. Juliet poked Shawn in the chest before he could turn to go.

"I warned you," she hissed. "You can't just leave him alone, can you."

"Jules, wait," Shawn murmured, glancing at the Detective's retreating back. "Something's off with him."

"No kidding," she snapped. "Wasn't I just telling you that? Go Shawn. Just leave."

Shawn frowned, looking from Juliet to Lassiter and then to Gus. He shrugged. "Fine. Let's go, Gus."

"Let's go? Shawn-"

Shawn didn't answer. He strode toward the steps and skipped down them, Gus quick on his heels. "Shawn," he said once they were out of earshot. "We need to talk to him."

"I know, Gus, and we will. But first. Deep fried nachos from La Seniora - No." He cut Gus off before he could object. "You're right. _First_, smoothies. Then nachos. Then." He paused for dramatic effect. "We pay a visit to the ex Mrs. Lassiter."

Gus rolled his eyes. "You mean our client Shawn? It's not dramatic to talk to our client."

"Maybe not the way _you_ do it."

Juliet watched Shawn and Gus go for a moment, torn between going after them to make things right and going after her partner. She chose her partner, and a moment later, was standing at his elbow overhearing the Chief finish her speech with:

"And get some rest. We're counting on you, Detective." Vick nodded at him, and then at Juliet, before striding off toward her office.

"What was that about?" Juliet asked.

Lassiter frowned in mild confusion at the chief's retreating back, then in earnest at his junior. "Why are you still here?"

She flinched, and he noticed. He rephrased with a roll of his eyes. "I _mean_, it's 7. You were off an hour and a half ago."

"Catching up on paperwork," she replied, trying not to take his tone personally. "What are _you_ still doing here?"

"Same," he said vaguely. "O'Hara. Go home. You're young, attractive in a modest contemporary way, and any paperwork you have left can wait til Monday."

She recognized that he was trying to be kind, no matter how it sounded. "I could say the same thing to you," she threw back. There was a pause. Lassiter raised a brow and Juliet replayed their conversation. "I meant - the paperwork." Lassiter frowned. "I mean, you're not old." His frown dipped to a scowl. "And you're - I mean someone might find-" With every word, she dug herself deeper into the bottomless pit of his intense irritation. "You know, you're right!" she finally said brightly. "I'll just be going. Bye!" She turned on her heel and strode away.

"We're just here to go over the facts one more time." Gus put on his best smile as he sipped coffee at the ex Mrs. Lassiter's kitchen table the next morning.

Victoria nodded, then glanced uncomfortably at Shawn, who was perusing her knickknacks.

"Don't worry about him," Gus said. "He's just seeing if he can read any... residual energy."

She nodded again. "Well. As I said, it started about two and a half weeks ago. I heard something in front of the house, and when I went out to check, there was a single rose on the doorstep. I looked around, but there was no one. There was no note, but I thought... The anniversary of our first date-" She shook her head.

"Does that sound like something Detective Lassiter would do?" Gus asked diplomatically. It was difficult to imagine Lassiter with a squishy soft side.

"Yes," she confirmed, looking upset. "He's a traditional romantic. Saves him from having to actually say anything to anyone."

"Did you talk to him after that?"

"I sent him a letter, just to see how he was. He sent me one back, just to see how I was. I sent him a reply, but he didn't write back again."

"Can I see the letter?" Shawn asked from across the room.

"It's kind of personal..." Victoria hemmed.

"It could be important," Gus assured. "Please know that we maintain complete confidentiality." He threw a look at Shawn. She looked doubtful, but got up to retrieve it. "In the meantime, why don't you tell us about the other incidents."

Victoria riffled through a stack of envelopes on the kitchen counter, all neatly stacked according to some private filing system. "Two days later, I saw a- I thought I saw a shadow outside the bathroom window. Three days after that, I saw that all of the flowers in the flowerbox on my bedroom window had had their heads clipped off. Here." She pulled out the letter and handed it to Shawn, who read while she continued. "Then, last week, I saw his car driving slowly through the neighborhood after dark. I think the head of our neighborhood watch called in a report to the police. I'm worried."

Gus patted her hand comfortingly. "_If_ Detective Lassiter is your stalker-"

"He's not," Shawn interrupted.

"We don't know anything yet," Gus insisted firmly. "But if he is, I'm certain you don't have anything to worry about. I'm proud to call the man my friend-"

Shawn snorted.

"That's why I called you," she agreed. "I'm not worried he'd do something - I just don't want him to-"  
She started over. "If something happened. And for some reason he's... out of sorts, stalking - it could ruin his career. Find out why he's doing this, and stop him before it gets out of control. I know you care about him."

Shawn raised a brow at Gus from over Victoria's shoulder.

"Of course," Gus assured smoothly.

"I care about him too," she said, but the sentiment was bittersweet. "I always will." She turned so she could include Shawn. "Help me help him."

Shawn nodded with overdone sympathy. "We'll always come through for Lassie-" His eyes widened at her confused look and he hastily appended, "-_ter_. Detective. Lassiter."

Gus rolled his eyes. "Thank you for your time."

Out on the sidewalk, Gus blew out a breath. "I _knew _he had a screw loose," he muttered, keying open the Echo. "I didn't figure him for a stalker."

"Come on, Gus. If anything, stalking's his _most_ likely coping mechanism. Think about it - it takes obsessive attention to detail and he gets to practice being a super spy trying not to get caught."

"I thought you said he didn't do it," Gus said, sliding into the passenger seat.

Shawn put his sunglasses on and started the car. "He didn't. I'm just saying, if he _was_ gonna snap and start breaking laws, stalking would probably be his bag."

"And just how do you know that, Shawn?"

"It's all in the eyes. He's got that cold, stalker look-"

"I meant, how do you know he didn't do it."

"Dude, don't be the bottom of a pineapple upside down cake-"

"Wouldn't that be the top?"

Shawn paused, pursing his lips in thought. "I don't know. But I do know this - Lassie isn't stalking his ex-wife."

Gus frowned as Shawn pulled into traffic. He looked around to get his bearings. "Where are you going?"

"We're paying a little visit to the head of the neighborhood watch."

"I'm sorry, who are you?"

Shawn grinned. "Shawn Spencer, head psychic of the SBPD. And this is my partner, Espadrille Fiasco. We're looking into a report you made about a stalker in the area?"

"Oh, yeah. Come on in." Ed Banner, head of the local neighborhood watch, led them through his home and into his kitchen. "You boys want coffee?"

"No, thank you," said Gus, just as Shawn was saying "Oh God yes." Gus looked at him from the corner of his eye, warning him with an eyebrow. "No, we're fine," he insisted.

Ed Banner quirked a brow. "So, you're really a psychic?"

"Oh yeah," Shawn said. "It's a curse, really."

"Shawn."

"Okay, it's not a curse. But it does strike at the oddest times. For example, I'm sensing that you're-" He glanced around the room hastily. "A dad. But the kids don't live here."

"They stay with their mother. How did you know that?"

Shawn tapped his temple. "Now, about this report-"

"You're working with the police on this? Why would they need a psychic? It's just some creep. I gave them the description of the car _and_ the guy."

Shawn forced a smile. "Not - okay, we're not working for the police right _now_. Mrs. Lassiter-"

"Who?"

Cold. She changed her name back? "Sorry. Victoria, 347 Argyle Lane? She hired us. I guess she doesn't have much faith in the police."

Ed Banner gave him a look, then sighed. "I made the report on April 11th. It was a blue car, looked like you know, what cops drive."

Shawn scoffed. "What cops drive? What, are you saying a cop is stalking someone in this neighborhood? Pff."

Ed Banner made a face. "What? No. I'm just telling you, that's the kind of car it was. Newer model."

"What about the driver?" Gus prompted, giving Shawn the hairy eyeball.

"Okay, he was kinda tall from what I could tell. Dark suit, dark hair. I mean it was night, hard to see. But it was definitely suspicious."

Shawn frowned. "Suspicious in what _way_-"

"Shawn." Gus crossed the room to take his arm.

Ed Banner frowned doubtfully. "In the ... way where he's driving real slow through the neighborhood?"

Gus nodded and forced a grin. "Of course. Thank you for your time. Let's go, Shawn."

Out on the sidewalk, Shawn jerked out of Gus' grasp. "Dude, what was that about?"

"What are you talking about, Shawn? That guy just basically described Lassiter in his car stalking Mrs. Lassiter. The case isn't who is stalking her, Shawn. It's why is Lassiter stalking her and how can we make him stop before he ruins his life."

"It wasn't him," Shawn insisted. "I know this, I know this in the very barrel of my bones."

Gus paused at the driver side door of the Echo. "Do you mean 'marrow of your bones'?"

"Marrow? That doesn't make sense."

"That's what it's _called._ Look, Shawn. This is your problem. You always want to believe the best about people, I know. But you and I both know Lassiter isn't always playing with a full deck."

Shawn shrugged as he slid into the passenger seat. "Maybe not, but I also know that my _gut_ is telling me that he would never do something so _stupid_ and risk his career, which you and I both _know_, is the one driving passion of his entire life!"

Gus wrinkled his nose. "Whatever, Shawn," he said after a moment. He put the car into gear.

"Dude where are we going?"

Gus stared straight ahead.

"Smoothies?"

Gus didn't respond.

"Tacos. Microwave salisbury steak?"

Gus smiled slyly.

Shawn grinned and watched him from the corner of his eye. "Heavenly Fritos con Mesa Gorditos?"

"You _know_ that's right."

Juliet sat at her desk on Monday morning, twisting a pen opened and closed over and over again as she stared at her partner's desk. Empty. For the fourth time, she picked up the phone and called his cell, hanging up mid-way through "Hello, this is Head Detective Carlton Lassiter of the Santa Barbara Police Department-" She didn't want to leave a voicemail, she wanted to know where her partner was. Juliet sprang from her chair when the chief walked by and swept into her wake.

"Chief!"

Vick turned and frowned. "O'Hara? What are you doing here?"

"What?" Juliet blinked in confusion. "Where's Lassiter? We've got a deposition at 9 - it's 8:30. He's never late - he never comes in later than 7:30. I've tried his phone. It just goes to voicemail."

"Calm down, O'Hara," Vick soothed. "He's on vacation."

Juliet made a face. "Vacation? Was anyone going to tell me?"

"_He_ was going to tell you. I take it he didn't?"

"No."

Vick sighed. "You're going to have to handle the deposition on your own."

"Of course, chief. I guess it just... slipped his mind."

Vick nodded. "He seemed a little distracted in his email. Frankly, I was only a couple days from ordering him to take time off when he asked for it three weeks ago." She eased her expression in deference to O'Hara's concern. "He needs this, O'Hara. He _deserves_ it. Don't you think?"

Juliet blew out her irritation and nodded, in full partner-support mode. "Definitely."

"Now move along, Detective. You've got a deposition in..." She checked her watch. "Twenty five minutes. Come to my office when you get back, and we'll go over the rest of his appointments for the week."

"Copy that, chief." Juliet watched the chief walk off, allowing herself to feel a little annoyed at her partner. _But he does deserve a break_, she repeated to herself.

The deposition was uneventful. They'd gone over the material together earlier on Friday in anticipation, and she realized now that Carlton probably thought he was preparing her to go solo on it. On her way back from the courthouse, she took a detour to drive past his place, still a little wary - it wasn't like him to just blatantly forget his duties. But his car was gone, his house looked shut up. Juliet shook her head and went back to work.

"But Gus, that doesn't answer my question. Pimento loaf is _what_? Nobody knows. I'm telling you, it's a mystery."

Juliet frowned. "Hey guys."

Shawn and Gus whirled to face her. "Oh. Hey Jules."

"What are you doing here?" She pursed her lips against the grin starting at the corners of her mouth. Shawn's energy was infectious, almost completely blotting out any irritation at her partner.

"Looking for Lassie, as usual."

Juliet frowned. So much for blotting out irritation. "He's on vacation."

Shawn frowned and looked at Gus. "Vacation? Voluntarily? That can't be right."

"Do you know where he went?" Gus asked.

Juliet shrugged. "He didn't even tell me he was leaving. I was just on my way to the chief's office to get up to speed on his appointments for the week."

"Oh," Shawn said. "Okay. Don't let us keep you."

Juliet narrowed her eyes. He was a charmer, and she often went along with it, but she knew when he was up to something. "What's going on, Shawn?"

"Nothing." At her look, he relented with a fling of his hands. "Okay. Lassie said he was going to help us with this case after all, but he didn't have time Friday night, so he said to come in Monday morning and he'd leave the file on his desk. I thought he'd be here to talk about it, but I guess he just... trusts us."

Gus smiled along until the last bit, then he raised a brow at his partner and tried to force a reassuring grin that didn't quite work.

Juliet rolled her eyes. "I will help you this _one_ time." She led them to Lassiter's desk and frowned at it. It was clear, maybe clearer than he usually left it for the day. But there was no obvious envelope with "Spencer" written on it. She pulled open his top drawer to give it a cursory look. There was a folder, unmarked. Not a case file, so she pulled it out to check. Inside were some photos, closeups, location establishing shots, like a PI. A house, a woman, a man on the sidewalk walking away from the house - Had Carlton hired someone to- She looked through the rest of the drawer for any notes, and as she brushed aside an envelope, her fingers rolled on -

Pill bottles? Two of them. She slammed the drawer shut and looked up, suddenly face to face with Shawn.

"Jules-"

"None of our business, Shawn." She frowned when Shawn stuck his chin out, then flipped the file folder closed. But before she managed it, his hand had shot out to snag one of the photos. He poured over it. "What. Do you know who that is?"

Shawn frowned. "No. But I'm getting some strong vibes on this one. Thanks Jules-" He started to walk off.

"Uh uh, Shawn," she warned, holding her hand out. "Give it back. If it's gone, Carlton will know someone's been in this drawer and seen-"

Shawn put on his over-the-top sensitive face. "Jules. We all know Lassie. If anyone needs help lightening up, it's that guy. His secret is safe with me. Gus, on the other hand, is _such_ a Chatty Kathy. His nickname in high school was the Gossip Queen." He frowned. "Or was it Dancing Queen."

"Shawn."

"But you're young and sweet-"

"Shawn!" Gus turned to Juliet. "You don't have to worry about us-"

"Feelin' neat ooon the trampoliiiine!"

"Shawn, it's feel the beat on the tambourine."

"I've heard it both ways."

Gus turned back to Juliet. "We'll just be going now."

"Wait! Jules. Maybe you can help. We're on this stalking case - the neighborhood watch made a report. Can you get us access to that? I'm hoping I can get some spiritual guidance from it."

"Sorry. No can do, Shawn. I gotta go. I'll talk to you later." Juliet turned from them crisply and headed toward the chief's office. After a couple of knocks, the chief waved her in. "Chief-"

"Have a seat, O'Hara."

She did. "Chief, I'm sorry about earlier. I was irritated."

"No apology necessary, Detective."

"It's just not like Carlton to leave me out of the loop like this-"

"Me neither, chief."

Vick looked up. Juliet looked stunned and irritated. "Mr. Spencer. What are you doing here?"

"We-" He gestured to Gus. "-had an appointment with your Head Detective today, and he, like, totally bailed. You know where he went?"

"He's on vacation, Mr. Spencer."

"Yeah, I know. But _where_?"

Vick took a calming breath. "I don't know. But he told me he was turning his phone off and would be completely unreachable, and I'm going to do my best to ensure he stays that way. I think we can all agree that he _needs_ this time off."

"Well when did this happen? Was it a spur of the moment thing or-"

"He emailed me three weeks ago, Mr. Spencer. I guess you didn't get the memo."

Juliet raised her brows at the chief's dangerous tone.

Shawn ignored it. "Lassie _emailed_ you? I didn't think he knew how to use the intertubes."

"Shawn everyone uses email. This isn't 1994," Gus whispered.

"We _always_ email things of this nature, Mr. Spencer. So that we have them in writing."

Shawn made a face. "Well, I'd love to stay and chat-"

"Mr. Spencer. Out."

"-But I'm needed elsewhere. Gus! To the smoothie-mobile!"

Shawn had his phone to his ear before they were even out of the building. "Something's fishy, Gus," he murmured.

"Shawn, the man took a vacation. Maybe he just realized he was about to ruin his life and decided to take a break, clear his head."

"No. The chief said he emailed her three weeks ago. The report from the neighborhood watch was only submitted a week and a half ago. Something's up-" He paused as the call connected. But it didn't ring. Just went straight to voicemail.

"This is Head Detective Carlton Lassiter, of the Santa..."

"...Detective Carlton Lassiter, of the Santa Barbara Police Department..."

The mid-day sun sparkled over the water. Frogs croaked. Fish swam lazily against the current, flitting from rock to rock, mouthing pebbles that might hide food. Tadpoles nervously wriggled from shade to shade, finding solace in the sturdy crevice that was the folded up and completely waterlogged, discarded cell phone of Carlton Lassiter, Head Detective of the Santa Barbara Police Department.


	2. Chapter 2: Fix

He was thirsty. And hungry, although they said hunger was actually the first sign of dehydration. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything to eat or drink, or even what day it was, but it was probably too soon to worry about kidney failure. Carlton Lassiter thought about the glittering bottle of scotch in his house in Santa Barbara with a longing that quickly turned to disgust. Too late for that.

"Victoria." His voice sounded raspy, probably from the dehydration. Not at all from the regret. Nope. "Victoria," he said again.

She didn't look at him. "You need help, Carlton."

He nodded, and then he was falling, and then he was jerking awake, cold from sweat and blinking in the afternoon sun streaming mercilessly through the window.

* * *

Shawn bounced a ball off the wall between thoughts. "Triceratops."

"No."

"Que sera sera?"

"No."

"Sarah _Thompson_."

Gus looked up from his nasal passage delivery systems catalogue and raised his brows in nostalgia, a faint smile on his face.

"Stay with me here, buddy," Shawn called, bopping the ball off Gus' nose.

"Shawn you know I don't like balls in my face."

"Seriously? You just said that. Okay. Look. I could only see some of the letters. Help me out here. Sera... something. Serta... Mattress center?"

Gus put his catalogue down and sighed, giving the matter some thought. "Sertaline?"

"Sertaline! What's that?"

"It's used to treat depression."

"I knew it!"

"And extreme shyness, or... post traumatic stress."

Shawn frowned. "PMS? Lassie?"

"It's PTSD Shawn, and you know it."

"I don't buy it. Don't you have to have like, feelings to be depressed?"

Gus gave him a look. "You're one to talk. You hit on a dead guy's widow a month ago."

"What, she's never allowed to date again?"

"It was _at _the crime scene Shawn!"

"She was a _waitress_, dude, what was I supposed to do? Anyway you know what I mean. Lassie wouldn't let mopeyness get in the way of his whole John Wayne thing-"

"You mean Clint Eastwood."

"What_ever_. Can you just imagine him sitting around somewhere on his vacation having a good cry? Not possible."

Gus rolled his eyes. "You said there were two bottles."

Shawn pursed his lips and rummaged around in his own desk evasively. "No I didn't."

"Shawn."

"Ok fine. That one I did see. Flu- fluvoxamine?" Shawn stumbled only a little over the pronunciation.

Gus frowned. Then he shook his head.

Shawn frowned back. "What? What's it for? Come on, Gus. Don't be a paperweight on the desk of a -"

"It's for obsessive thoughts, Shawn," Gus interrupted seriously. "I was right. That drug is to treat people who can't stop obsessing. Lassiter _is_ stalking his ex-wife."

"...rodeo... clown..." Shawn snapped his mouth shut and sat back in his chair, stunned. He was wrong? He was wrong. No. "Damnit. No, wait. If he was really taking these drugs, why would he leave them in his desk drawer when he was going away for a week?"

Gus frowned thoughtfully. "It's common for people with depression to be ashamed of needing medication. And you know how Lassiter is. Maybe he never started them. Did you see how many were left?"

"No. Jules shut me down with her cat-like reflexes. But if he's on anti-depressants, I'd hate to see him off. He's been ridiculous for weeks."

Gus shrugged. "Could be side effects. Irritability, sleeplessness, headache, upset stomach-"

"Ok. First things first." Shawn swung his feet off his desk and reached for the keys to Gus' Echo.

Gus pulled them out of his reach. "First things first? We don't have a case anymore Shawn. Lassiter's on vacation. We can't do anything until he gets back."

"That's where you're wrong. First, the doctor's name was Dr Vincent Moryma. Heard of him?"

Gus raised a brow. "Not on my route. I can check the database-"

"_You_ are a team player, Gus." Shawn made another reach for the keys. "Meanwhile, we need to get that neighborhood watch guy's report."

"We know what he reported, Shawn." Gus moved the keys to the side and out of his reach again without having to think about it.

Shawn went for them again. "There's something off about it. It's too perfect. Lassie goes stalking in a suit?"

Gus rolled his eyes and finally just tossed his keys right into Shawn's hands. "I'm not convinced he doesn't _sleep_ in a suit."

Shawn jingled them excitedly, bouncing like a puppy now that he knew Gus was on board, argument notwithstanding. "Point. But I still wanna see it."

* * *

Murderers. Thieves. Arsonists. More murderers. Juliet rubbed her temple and shrugged her shoulders up hard to loosen the tension in them. How did Carlton manage to get anything done? After her meeting with the chief, she'd instructed the records clerk to forward anything Carlton had asked for to her desk. When the clerk had raised his brows and said, "It's the 22nd. Do you want his monthlies too?" she'd said a harried "yes" without thinking.

And so she sat at her desk, staring at photo after photo, reading over his notes for next steps on each of the more dangerous criminals he'd put in jail over the last ten years who had since gotten out of prison. His notes were meticulous, probation meeting schedules, current employment, suspicious activities, family, acquaintances, with cross references to known accomplices with files of their own and some without. She was willing to bet that if she skimmed his dayplanner, she'd find he'd made a note of every court date he could find time to attend.

And he did this every month? There had to be at least two dozen files in the box the clerk had sent up. She sighed at the third one she'd opened. Carlton's handwriting was precise and small, cramped to fit the bits and pieces he puzzled together from watching, waiting, occasionally grilling associates. She shook her head and sighed, pulling and setting aside the handful of reports he'd flagged with red stickies to do some checking. He could manage the rest of his obsessive babysitting when he got back, she thought sourly.

Then she sighed at his empty desk, with the drawer hiding the photos and anti-depressants and - though Shawn hadn't seen it, she hoped - a letter from his ex-wife. Juliet couldn't bring herself to keep on being upset at her partner. His being detail-oriented and a little too zealous in the pursuit of justice wasn't new. And it solved crimes. He got the job done.

But at what cost? He'd been... what? Seeing a psychologist? Behind her back? Of course that was silly - he wasn't under any obligation to tell her anything about his private affairs. Still. She gazed at his desk without seeing. She'd googled the side effects of what she'd found in his drawer, and she felt ridiculously guilty for being happy as the list went on; it wasn't her. It wasn't even Shawn. Carlton's recent descent into being intolerable was just a side effect! He didn't _seem_ happier, but if he felt more in control, then he probably _felt_ happier, and that was what counted. Eventually, he'd be used to whatever the dosage was, and - and...

Juliet frowned. He wasn't getting used to anything, because the drugs he'd been taking were still right there in his desk drawer. She blew out a breath and looked back down at the file she'd been slogging through. Then she looked back up at Carlton's desk. Then she looked back down at the file, and then up at the door to the Chief's office. Then back at his desk. Then she took a deep breath and stood.

"Chief?" she said from Vick's doorway.

Vick looked up in surprise. "O'Hara? Can I help you?"

"I was just wondering. You really don't know where Carlton went?"

Vick shook her head. "I really don't."

"I'm sorry, chief. That just doesn't make sense. Assuming that Carlton voluntarily took a vacation, why wouldn't he tell you where? Why would he turn his phone off?"

"He's on _vacation_."

Juliet sat. "And if he were a normal person, that'd be fine. But this is Carlton we're talking about. The last time he took just _one _vacation day - because you forced him to - he called to check in three times! What did he actually say to you?"

"We didn't talk about it, O'Hara. Detective Lassiter is a private person. In his email, he asked that I not make a big deal about it, that he'd take care of the loose ends, and that was that."

"I know, I'm just -

"Detective O'Hara, what is the problem here? I'd have thought you of all people would understand the need for Detective Lassiter to finally take some time off. He practically lived here for the two weeks you took off after - He needs a break."

"I know, Chief. It's just-" Juliet pursed her lips in a little guilt. Mentioning her own time off felt like a low blow, but she couldn't call the Chief on it even if she'd wanted to, because Vick had a really good point. But neither could she rat out the things she'd found in Carlton's desk, not until she knew more about it. She needed to do some digging of her own. "You're right. I'm sorry."

Juliet sat back down at her desk, staring blankly at the stacks of case files, thick with Lassiter's eager, dutiful notes. A million scenarios raced through her head - Carlton peacefully fishing, Carlton mixed up in one of these cases he investigated on his downtime, Carlton laughing at her when he got back for being worried about nothing, Carlton thinking about his wife with another man, drinking and off the medication keeping him level, finally just deciding-

"He_llo_, Earth to Jules."

She blinked at Shawn's hand waving giddily before her face. "Shawn," she said dully, then shook herself. "What are you doing here?"

"Following up on some leads," Shawn replied evasively.

She knew he was up to something, but didn't have the attention or energy for it. She shrugged. "Okay."

Shawn raised a brow and shared a look with Gus. "Okay?"

"Okay. Whatever you're doing. I don't care. Look, I got a lot of work-"

Shawn shook his head as he if were shaking off the bucket of cold water she'd splashed all over whatever bouncy banter he'd thought up for this conversation. He put his hands up. "Whoa whoa whoa, Jules. What is this? I'm sensing... the Olsen twins- split... atten-"

"Don't try to play psychic with me right now Shawn. Anyone can see that I've got my mind on other things. It's just... something's bothering me about the..." She caught herself. "Paperwork Lassiter left me. Bureaucratic lingo, that's all."

Shawn didn't look convinced. "So... just ask him when he gets back," he said carefully.

She knew she was being watched, for a tick, for a tell. Carlton had asked for Shawn's help before, when he'd been accused of murder and stripped of his badge, but this wasn't so simple, and it could have been nothing, and all she had to do was imagine Carlton's face when he found out she'd rubbed his dirty laundry together for Shawn Spencer to smell to decide she needed to keep his confidence for as long as possible. She owed him that. She tilted her head at Shawn and smiled. "I will."

* * *

"Liar," Shawn seethed, striding down the street toward his motorcycle. He plastered a smile on his face when his call connected. "Hey, buddy. Meet me at Lassie's. What? I thought you did your route yesterd- Oh. Dude. Yeah, bring it. We'll swing by after."

He hung up the phone and swung a leg over his motorcycle.

Minutes later, he was pulling up to Lassiter's building. His lights were off, his car was gone. A few newspapers were stacked neatly under his mailbox. Shawn took a brief lap around. The lawn was neatly kept, all the windows seemed to be properly locked with curtains he hoped Lassie had _not_ picked out. Lace? Really? Shawn shook his head and continued around the corner, where he stopped short, eyeballing a depression in the grass - like someone had been standing there for a while. Maybe Mr. and Mrs. Lassiter had the same secret admirer? Or... Shawn sighed and bent to inspect the soil around the back hedges. Maybe Lassie had just watered his lawn one last time before going off on vacation. But hello. What was that? Pressed into the dirt by a footprint was the edge of a scrap of paper. Shawn pulled it out.

A phone number... He didn't recognize the area code, but that meant next to nothing if it was a cell phone. Shawn grinned and pushed the scrap of paper into his jeans pocket for later investigation, then finished his lap around the house before settling in to pick the lock.

"Is that as hard as it looks?" Gus said over his shoulder.

Shawn jumped half a foot. "Dude," he hissed. "Can you not see that I'm concentrating here?"

"So it _is _as hard as it looks."

"No. I'm trying to remember all the lyrics to David Bowie's _It's Hard to be a Saint in the City_."

"You mean, Bruce Springsteen's _It's Hard to be a Saint in the City._"

"I've heard it both ways."

"You know you have," Gus confirmed. "But you can't top the original. You can't beat The Boss."

Shawn scoffed. "What does Tony Danza have to do with it?" The lock clicked. "Yahtzee! We're in."

"Yahtzee?"

"Pinochle?" Shawn stepped lightly into Lassiter's front foyer.

"It's a man's game, Shawn," Gus said defensively, easing in behind him.

"Dude." Shawn walked through the little foyer with his hands out, trying to pick out details about the man's mental state. The small open kitchen area was clean the way a single, detail oriented man's was: not a dish in the sink, but the freezer was full of single-serving frozen things. Sad Lassie. But from experience, Shawn knew the man occasionally cooked, or at least bought groceries - fruits, veggies. Of course, if he was on vacation, he'd have tossed anything that could go bad while he was gone, so their absence didn't tell him anything. Shawn frowned. "Check out the medicine cabinet," he whispered.

"Okay," Gus whispered back. "What do you think we're gonna find here, Shawn?"

"I don't know yet. Something's bothering me about this whole vacation thing." He moved into the living room and frowned at the small wheeled bar stand, taking in the small collection of liquor bottles.

"I know, but- Why are we whispering?"

"Be_cause_, Gus, we are being sneaky. This is what being sneaky is."

"There's no one here Shawn."

Shawn made a frowny face at him and continued creeping around the room. "Hello," he murmured at the little fake fireplace. Bits of broken glass littered the area, too thin for a glass, and the curve was too small; a label indicated-

"Dude."

"Gus wait-"

"Dude, look at this."

Shawn whined in frustration and spun around, stopping short at the sight with his mouth still open in complaint.

Gus had found Lassie's board o' evil, where he tracked wanted criminals and newly released bad guys he'd put in jail with stickies and notes and photos. Across the board, in red marker dragged over photos and notes in drunken haphazard capital letters, were the words, "It's over. I'm done."

* * *

"You're a psychologist, you tell me." Carlton Lassiter sat in an uncomfortable chair, scowling hard at the man across from him.

"_Psychiatrist_," the man insisted. "I am a psychiatrist. Psychologists want to talk about your feelings, get into your head. Do you want to talk about your feelings, Detective?"

Lassiter curled his lip in disgust. "No. Not with you, you-"

"Not with _anyone_," the psychiatrist corrected. He got up and paced the room.

Lassiter watched him, wary, but he had to concede the point, lest he be pressed into talking about his sessions with Madeleine Spencer. "What of it?" he snarled.

The psychiatrist spun to him, smiling as though he'd won. "We're men, you and I," he said, stepping close. "And we both know, the only way to fix anything is through science, medication. And that is why you're here."

Lassiter shook his head. "Can't fix anything," he mumbled. "Not anymore."


	3. Chapter 3: Hero

"Dude." Shawn beelined for the board 'o doom, skirting the coffee table and a lamp and end table without having to look.

"It's over, I'm done," Gus read, an edge of panic on his vowels.

"No, no, wait," Shawn said, dazed and feeling numb at his extremities. He shook it off. "No, this doesn't make sense." He narrowed his eyes at the board, trying to take in any detail, but again Gus interrupted him with his whining hyperventalizing.

"We gotta find him, Shawn."

"We will dude. Just calm down. Look for clues about where he might have gone." Shawn moved around the room, fighting down panic himself. Clues, clues - Lassie wasn't out to off himself, Shawn was sure of that. But he was definitely not on vacation. Maybe.

Except that the place really looked like Lassie'd planned to leave. The trash had been taken out, dishes done. When Shawn checked the man's closet, it was easy to tell he'd packed at least one suit, probably with a couple of shirts and various underclothes. The man was almost pathologically organized.

"His toothbrush is gone," Gus called, coming into the room from the bathroom down the hall. "You don't even want to know what his bathroom reading material is."

"His toothbrush? That's weird."

"It's not weird if you consider that he is _on vacation_," Gus said excitedly. "Maybe he packed _before_ having a mental breakdown. Maybe he's not going to off himself after all, and he's just thinking of quitting police work? Maybe-"

"You are not helping," Shawn grumbled. He had a headache. Working cases was easy when he didn't know the victims. Of course, he always managed to befriend whoever wasn't the actual murder victim. It was so much easier to get information from them that way. But the one time Lassie had been the victim, the Head Detective had been there the whole time, reassuringly wrong at every turn.

This was a whole different thing, and it was annoying. And it was sapping his charming witty banter on nearly a Yang-level.

Shawn walked back into the living room, trailed by Gus still jabbering on about the possibilities. Some of it made sense - a scary kind of sense considering the caseload of the last few weeks and the PMS- er, PTSD thing and the drugs in Lassie's desk and the whole stalking Mrs. Lassiter thing.

"Shawn," Gus said. "Shawn are you even listening to me?"

"Yeah, buddy," Shawn replied half-heartedly, still churning through what evidence they had, what it could point to besides Lassie going off to - whatever.

"I _said_, did you know Lassiter had a fish?"

Shawn's mental gears ground to a halt and he turned to find Gus - not in sight. "What? Gus! Where'd you go?"

"The guest bedroom," Gus said, poking his head out of a room off the hall.

Shawn raised his brows and backtracked to Gus. "A secret room! Dude."

"It's not a secret, Shawn," Gus whispered.

"Then why are you whispering?"

Gus gave him a look. "We're being _sneaky_ Shawn," he defended.

"_Yeah_ we are, buddy!" Shawn replied, pushing past Gus to get a look at the room he was sure was just full to the brim with clues, or failing that, embarrassing details he could "divine" later just to watch Lassie squirm. A secret Lassie room! He felt better already.

The room was done in blue and woodwork and actually looked kind of respectable. There were a couple personal photos; Shawn took the opportunity to pour over them: Lassiter's mother, his ex wife, and a newer looking one of Juliet in a smart skirt suit and dark sunglasses, obviously not aware a photo was being taken of her, which was creepy. No photo of a father figure type. Shawn frowned.

In general, the room was less a guest room and more an office, although there was a fold-up cot in the corner. Shawn imagined that when Lassie had a _really _good date that ended up with "coffee" at his place, he dutifully cut the night short at 12:01 and let his date crash on the fold-up. Man needed some serious help. The desk had a couple of envelopes on it, but they were just gas and electric and phone bills. No cable bill? Poor bastard.

The fish tank was against the far wall between bookcases filled with manuals, encyclopedic tomes on guns and safety, large picture books about crime scene photography, and books about the Civil War, horses, and fishing. Pretty predictable for the Detective. Shawn tilted his head and smiled faintly at the title "Mounted: A guide for mounted police officer certification training."

"Mounted," he giggled, just as Gus was saying, "Dude look at this!"

Gus was kneeling on the floor in front of the tank, rummaging through the cabinet that held Lassie's fishy supplies. He pulled out a little pink gift bag. "It's proof he just went away on vacation, right?"

Shawn frowned, kneeling next to Gus and looking through the cabinet himself. The original bowl Lassie got the fish in, a spare 2.5 lb bag of rocks to match what was in the ten gallon tank, some rubbery colorful things that might have been fish toys.

"Because it's a 7-day feeder. Right Shawn?"

Shawn frowned and looked over, tilting his head at the tag on the gift bag. He reached a finger over to tilt it toward him so he could see in, and shook his head. "Nope. They're all 7-day feeders, buddy. And that is Juliet's hand-writing. And this-" He pulled out the little fish bowl. "-Is the bowl she gave the fish to him in. All this tells us is that Jules gave Lassie a fish and enough supplies that he'd never have to worry about getting home to feed it." He flicked the small bowl and it pinged. "He switched up to a bigger tank to give himself more time between water changes."

"Like you know about keeping fish."

"Gus. I worked at the Baltimore Aquarium for like 4 and a half days. You remember that! I sent you a little present in the mail."

"You can't send fish in a box in the mail, Shawn."

"What's the problem? I sent it priority!"

Gus jerked his head away in a fit of dismay, even while Shawn was thoughtfully rising to his knees to actually look _in_ the tank.

"What's _this_," he said slowly. "Definitely evidence that he plans to come back. Aww! Lookit!"

Gus raised a brow and got to his knees too. Then he got serious. "Dude. Is that a jungle gym?"

"A little fishy playground. Look! A little ball and hoop! Oh oh back there! I think it's a little cave-maze!"

"This man loves his fish," Gus said, a little disturbed.

"Dude, this is way better than that scary looking Ms Peaches Gingersnap-"

"Don't you talk about Ms Ginger Peaches that way, Shawn. She deserved to be loved just like any other cat. I for one applaud Lassiter for taking in such a- unique and interesting looking animal."

"Ok dial it back, Animal Cops. I was just - oooh, there he is!"

Lassiter's goldfish swam apprehensively across the front of the tank, eyeing them both with the kind of aloof skepticism they were used to getting from the Detective himself. Shawn stared back, nodding slowly.

"Shawn."

"Okay," Shawn said vacantly. "I'm convinced."

"Shawn, please tell me you _aren't_ trying to talk to that fish right now." When Shawn didn't answer immediately, Gus added, "You know you can't telepathically talk to fish. You aren't Aqualad-"

"Aqualad? Really? When there's Aqua_man_ right there?" Shawn shook his head and got up. "We gotta go."

"To the police, I hope."

"Mango quesadillas, but that was a good guess."

"Shawn!"

The number rang four times before it connected. Shawn sat in the passenger seat of the Echo in front of the police station and stared at the digits on the little scrap of paper he'd salvaged from Lassie's backyard the whole time, willing that someone with all the answers would pick up the other end. When it did, all the other guy had time to say was "Hello-" before Shawn was saying, "Hi, may I ask who I'm speaking to?"

"Uh... this is Dr Moryma's office. Dr. Moryma speaking."

Shawn frowned. The prescribing doctor for those pills in Lassie's desk? Damn. "Oh, hi. I was referred to your office by a friend of mine, Carlton Lassiter - well he's not really a friend - I mean, I was wondering if you could tell me a little about how you interact with him. I know he's a little difficult to deal with so-"

"I'm afraid we can't discuss patients-"

"Oh, when I say friend, what I mean is, we're a bit more than friends, if you know what I mean ow-Ahh I mean. Sorry-" Shawn gave Gus a look and rubbed his side where he'd been elbowed. "I dropped the - I'm making dinner-"

"It's four o'clock in the afternoon."

"Yeah, well my Lassie-poo likes dinner to be prompt-ow!" Shawn pulled the phone from his ear and hissed, "Will you stop it!" Gus flicked him in the arm. "Hi, sorry about that. So, about my liddle-"

"Look, sir. Even if you were his _wife_, we wouldn't be able to divulge any information about his affiliation with this office," Dr Moryma ground out. "I'm sorry. Now, if I can make you an appointment-"

Shawn ended the call and frowned at Gus. "Dude. That was Dr. Moryma's office."

"So? You found a piece of paper in Lassiter's yard with his doctor's phone number on it."

Shawn made a face. "I know. It's weird-"

"That's not weird Shawn."

"What did you get on the guy?"

Gus rolled his eyes and reached into the back seat of the Echo for the file. "He's a pretty successful psychiatrist north of Santa Barbara. I checked - he's got a perfect record, no complaints on file."

"Geez, someone has a new bff."

"As a matter of fact, I intend to cold call both Dr Moryma and Dr..." He looked down for the name. "Kurt Lobego, next week."

Shawn shook his head and opened his car door. "Lobego? Why does that sound like a porn name?"

"It does not Shawn-"

"Kurt! Lobeeeeego!"

"Shawn!" Gus beeped the doors locked and waited for Shawn to catch up before he started toward the station. "What are we gonna tell them?"

Shawn frowned. "I don't know yet. Maybe nothing-"

"But Lassiter's note-"

"Look Gus, if we tell them Lassie left a goodbye note, they're going to start treating this like the kind of case that it's not."

"Like a-"

"Don't say it. I just know - we don't have the whole story. Until we do-"

Gus pulled them both to a stop. "Shawn. If this isn't a-" He stopped short at the look on Shawn's face, then rolled his eyes. "If it's not, and he's really been - what do you even think happened? Kidnapped? Lassiter? You must be outta your damn mind."

"I don't know what I think, Gus. None of this makes sense yet. But we need more information, or the only kind of sense it will make to _anyone _is that Lassie went off and - and -"

"Doesn't plan on coming back."

"Yeah."

"But _you _think he's actually in some kind of trouble."

"...Yeah. Maybe."

"Well if he is, shouldn't we have _more_ people looking for him? Even if they think he's ... you know."

Shawn pouted. "Man! Fine. But you need to have my back when they all start thinking what they're gonna think."

"Shawn, when have I _ever_ not had your back?" There was a beat while they both looked off in memory. "Don't answer that."

"Way ahead of you buddy," Shawn replied, skipping up the steps to the station, already getting into vision-mode. "Oh, oh!" he cried, stumbling up the steps and into the bullpen. "Jules, the spirits - they're covered in... oh God, it's red, red."

Juliet shot up from her desk and stared, turning to Gus for an answer.

"You should have seen him when I picked him up from the Psych office," Gus lied. "Carrying on about a puppy with opposable thumbs."

Shawn paused mid-theatric to give Gus the hairy eyeball, but a moment later he figured out the reference and danced around to the other side of his partner for a discrete fist-bump. "Yes, the puppy, oh god. Down the well!" He grabbed a marker off a nearby desk and threw himself violently to the floor where he made a show of tracing letters onto the tile.

"What, Shawn!" Juliet called over his caterwalling. "Shawn, what's happening? Is it a murder?"

Shawn shook his head, feigning intense misery. "Maybe!" he spat out.

"Who's the victim?" She grabbed a pad of paper from her own desk and a pen.

"The puppy - the puppy - someone's down the well!"

"Who! Shawn, who is it!"

Shawn glanced up at Gus sidelong to share a look of exasperation. Could nobody just ride his wavelength for one minute of the day, please? Was that too much to ask? He uncapped the marker even though he'd been trying to be conscientious about marking up the SBPD's shining floor and wrote in large all caps letters as close as he could get to the handwriting in Lassiter's living room:

LASSIE

He retraced the letters over and over while Juliet went white, until she found her voice again and said calmly, "Tell me what you see, Shawn."

Gus helped her pull Shawn up from the floor and backward to sit in faux-exhaustion against one of the pillars.

"In Lassie's ... living room I think. It's blurry, like I've been drinking, and there's a board with writing on it. But I see red. Red - _poisson rouge_ - goldfish?" He flicked his glance to Juliet in time to catch the tiny flush. "No, no - _herring_. Red herring. Whatever you find there, don't take it at face value. Lassie's in trouble. Oh god I can feel it."

Juliet grabbed the elbow of one of the uniformed officers staring at the display and dispatched him to check on Lassie's house while Shawn checked in with Gus.

"Little over the top?" he wondered quietly.

Gus tilted his head to indicate _maybe _and handed him a cup of water from the water cooler. "But effective. Juliet's in full-on battle-mode. I thought she was gonna tear that guy's arm off!"

"She has _totally_ been working out. I knew it!"

"Guys," Juliet called from Lassiter's desk.

Gus helped Shawn to his feet and over to her.

"I've been trying to crack Lassiter's password. I have a call in-" The phone at Lassiter's desk rang and Juliet picked up before the first ring finished. "Lassi- Thanks guys. Hang on." She tapped at the keys. "No good. No - no - _no, _I know about leaving the caps lock on guys. Come on." She paused to listen. "Oh. Well, he's not here right now, so talk to me like a regular person. He changed it? But I thought - Okay let me try that one." She tapped again, and the log in screen was replaced by Lassiter's desktop wallpaper. "That worked. Thanks guys." She turned to Shawn and Gus. "The tech guys always set Lassiter's password for him - they have some kind of game where they don't actually tell him the password, he has to figure it out, which means they pretty much always know what it is. Only this time, he changed it without telling them."

Gus raised a brow at Shawn. "Sounds a little _paranoid_," he suggested meaningfully.

Shawn kicked him in the shin and said, "Check his emails."

Juliet was already scrolling through them. "Nothing here that might indicate travel plans," she said with dismay.

"See if he's been corresponding with any old friends," Gus suggested, pulling open the top drawer to paw through. "Sometimes in cases of - Shawn. Look at this." He pulled out an envelope addressed to Lassiter in the familiar handwriting of -

"The ex-Mrs. Lassiter..." Shawn murmured, taking the envelope. It was open, the letter'd been pulled out and read and refolded again. Damnit.

Juliet frowned, looking up from the computer. When she saw the envelope in Shawn's hand, she heaved a sigh. "Shawn, leave that alone. It's none of our business."

Shawn and Gus shared a look, which Juliet noticed, because then she said, "Or is it _your_ business?"

Shawn and Gus shared a shrug.

"Guys! Get serious."

Shawn relented. "Fine. We got a call from ex-Mrs. Lassiter about a week ago saying that _someone_-"

"Detective Lassiter."

"-Was stalking her. Gus!" Shawn elbowed Gus in the ribs. He turned back to Juliet. "Yes. She thought he was stalking her. And yes, we do have some evidence that - But it wasn't him Jules. I know. He wouldn't stalk somebody. He'd ruin his career. So, we were hired to find out why he was stalking her but what we're _doing _is trying to find out who's _really _stalking her."

Juliet looked disappointed. "Shawn, this is a big deal-" Another call came through Lassiter's desk. Jules answered it with a curt, "Yes!" She visibly paled, looking at Shawn. "I see. Well don't touch anything. Get pictures of everything."

"Tell 'em to dust for prints!" Shawn called, trying to be heard through the receiver.

"And dust for prints," Juliet echoed hollowly. She hung up. "Why are we dusting for prints, Shawn?" she said seriously. "Maybe you didn't see this in your vision, but this isn't a kidnapping or whatever you're thinking. It looks like - it looks like-"

"I know what it looks like," Shawn said softly. "Just remember the other part of my vision. Red herring, all right? Trust me."

Juliet shook her head, but whatever she was going to say was cut short by McNab's appearance.

"Got that report you were asking for, Shawn," he piped. Then his cheerful smile drooped. "What's wrong?"

Juliet looked at Shawn. "Nothing," she said.

"Oh. Okay then," McNab said doubtfully. He turned back to Shawn. "Looks like your psychic vibes were a couple days off."

Shawn made a face and snatched the report from McNab's hands. "What? Let me see..."

Gus peered over his shoulder.

"Yeah, I mean there is a report from that day, but the first one was done two days earlier. Still, that's pretty amazing. What's two days, give or take?"

Shawn frowned at the file. There was the report the neighborhood watch guy filled out. It detailed Lassie to a T, along with his car. There was even a partial plate that matched Lassiter's car. Shawn's heart sank. He flipped to the first report and scanned it. The description of the stalker was a little less detailed, but more of the event was reported: someone about Lassie's height, standing around ex-Mrs. Lassiter's house, drinking and looking angry.

Gus hmmed deep in his throat, and he and Shawn shared a look.

Juliet clicked her tongue against her teeth. "Damnit, Carlton," she murmured, sinking into his chair.

Shawn shook his head. "This report didn't come from the neighborhood watch guy."

Juliet's head came up. "What? Let me see that."

"So what?" Gus said. "Anyone can file a report about strange people in their neighborhood."

Shawn handed the file over, sweeping his fingers to his temple as he remembered every detail from the file. "Fact: this guy is claiming to be the neighborhood watch guy, but he's not. His address is a digit off and his middle initial is wrong."

Juliet flipped to the second report to compare. "He's right."

"Why would you claim to be the neighborhood watch guy if you aren't?"

"I can't believe you didn't share this earlier," Juliet muttered, sitting back in Lassiter's chair. "No matter who this report came from, if there's a chance he's a danger to himself or others-"

"Detective Lassiter?" McNab said, his little puppy dog face wrinkling up in worry. "What's-"

"McNab," Juliet interrupted gently. "I need to you go check out an address for me. 347 Argyle Lane-"

"That's Mrs. Lassiter's address," Buzz recognized.

Juliet frowned at him. "How do you know that?"

"Detective Lassiter asked me to..." He trailed off at the look on their faces. "Yes, ma'am."

"Ask her to come in, if she's willing. I'd like to ask her a few questions. Oh, Buzz. Keep it quiet."

Buzz nodded smartly and left, suddenly all business.

Juliet turned on Shawn. "You need to tell me everything you know, right _now_."

Buzz skipped down the steps toward the motor pool, nodding and smiling and saying hello to everyone he hadn't yet nodded or smiled or said hello to. But his mind was whirring with unlikely plots about Detective Lassiter and why he was being sent to check on Mrs. Lassiter, and Buzz was a man on a mission. He even told Officer Lyle he'd have to talk to him later! Yes, this was a job for the aviators.

The highway was not clear since it was rush hour, and Buzz debated turning on his lights to get through it faster, but decided to err on the side of caution - although Detective Lassiter certainly would have if he thought it was warranted, and if Shawn had a police motorcycle he'd probably never turn the lights off. But it was probably better to - right, Detective O'Hara had said to keep it quiet, so - okay. No lights. Buzz nodded to himself, humming off-key to the faint radio.

Argyle was a quiet street in a quiet neighborhood. The house looked just the same as it had when he'd helped Detective Lassiter a couple of days after the first report came in about the stalker in the area. Sometimes it really helped to just drive a black and white through the streets to remind people that the police were on the job. Buzz parked the car right in front of the house, kicking himself. He must have been driving through the night of the second report; how did he miss some guy creeping around being creepy? He skipped up the sidewalk steps and strode up the sidewalk, sliding his sunglasses on carefully and trying to project cool confidence.

He knocked.

Then he knocked again.

Then he frowned. "Mrs. La- I mean, Miss Parker?" He sidestepped to look into the living room bay window. The house was dark, but her car was in the driveway. Buzz took a lap around the house to see if he could find any signs of life, and when he couldn't, he flipped open his cell phone.

"Hi, Detective O'Hara. It's Buzz."

"What you got for me?"

"Well first, do we know if Mrs. Lassiter has two cars?"

There was some muffled discussion on the other end of the line, then Detective O'Hara came back: "She doesn't."

"Hm."

"What is it, McNab?"

Buzz looked around surreptitiously, then whispered into the phone. "Well her car's here. But..."

"Buzz, just tell me-"

"She's not."

Buzz winced at the curse on the other end of the line.

Lassiter paced the length of the room at the back wall. He really couldn't stand it when women cried. The waterworks, the running mascara, the incoherent blubbering. But when Victoria cried, she was quiet, and she was refined, and she was regal, and that was why he had fallen in love with her and married her.

"You were crying the first time I saw you," he said softly.

She nodded. Tears traced paths down her cheeks, not in big rolling sops but a stately refreshing of silver over her handsome face. "You were my hero."

"Not anymore, I guess."


	4. Chapter 4: Red Herring

Juliet O'Hara hung the phone up without having realised she'd done it. She stared at it for almost thirty seconds before Shawn's voice was able to slice through the fog.

"What?" she said dully.

"I said, what was that about? I've never heard such unladylike talk."

"Did someone just let a sailor in here?" Gus agreed.

Time sped back up and the bustle of the station zoomed back into sharp relief. "That was Buzz," she said, feeling ill. "Victoria Parker is missing."

In the periphery of her vision, Shawn leaned in toward Gus, muttering, "Who?"

"Mrs Lassiter!" Gus hissed back.

Shawn frowned instantly; Juliet could feel the sudden suck of energy being drained out of the station into the pit of his dismay. "Dammit," he cursed softly.

Juliet shook her head. Carlton needed her. He probably wouldn't be her partner after this was over, but until that moment, she - until that moment happened, he was. "We need to go to the chief with this."

"Jules wait!" Shawn gasped, his fingers flying to his temple in an obvious play for time. "I'm sensing... I'm sensing she's fine!"

"What?"

"Yeah, Shawn," Gus accused privately. "What?"

Juliet rolled her eyes. "Stop it, Shawn. I know-"

"No, really!" he insisted. He looked at Gus, spreading his hands like he could fix everything, as usual, with some stupid psychic claim or- "I just... know. She's fine!"

Juliet stood from Carlton's desk. "I'm sorry guys. I have to consider the worst case here." Oh God, her legs were numb. She steadied herself. She steeled herself. She took a deep breath. She pointed herself at Vick's office and willed herself to start walking. But suddenly, Shawn and Gus were at her either side, steering her toward her own desk and muttering nonsensical things about fish and cheese and pineapples. She pulled all three of them to an irritated stop. "Shawn-!"

"Sorry. I'm looking for Shawn Spencer?"

Juliet blinked. Beside her, Shawn frowned and leaned across her front to murmur to Gus: "Dude what is the guy with the bad hair looking for me for? Do we owe him money? Oh oh! Does he owe _us_ money?"

"Shawn," Gus started, but Shawn was already pulling away, putting on his best charmer face. The man had been asking at the desk at the top of the steps, and it was never difficult for even the greenest faces to point out Shawn.

"I'm Shawn Spencer," Shawn enthused.

Juliet frowned, her fingers twitching at her sides. How could he - Did he really just not _care_?

"What can I do ya for?"

The guy looked a little confused. He looked Shawn up and down in doubt, then looked to Juliet. "I was supposed to meet a Detective Lassiter later this week, but I needed to - to talk to him now, and I - so I called him. But I just got his voicemail, saying to ask for-"

"Shawn?" Gus scoffed. "Yeah, right."

But Juliet frowned in sudden thought. It was department policy to change your voicemail message if you went on vacation. She beelined for her desk and dialed his number from her phone. The voicemail picked up immediately, which meant his phone was off. She hit the speakerphone. His stern, disembodied voice filtered through the line into silence.

"This is Head Detective Carlton Lassiter of the Santa Barbara Police Department. I am on vacation and will return on April 26th. If you are in need of immediate attention, please call my partner, Detective Shawn Spencer. If this is in reference to case number 04202010-0543, please reference item MDR-THB when speaking to him."

The silence dragged on long after the beep. Then Juliet hung up. "That's..."

"He is never going to live this down."

"Shawn!" Gus hissed. Juliet looked up in time to see the tail end of Gus nodding meaningfully at her, and she straightened her shoulders.

"Oh, Jules. I'm sure Lassie doesn't mean anything by-"

"It's _code_, Shawn," Juliet interrupted, staring at the phone in thought.

"He knows," Gus said softly.

Juliet looked up to see Shawn looking off, uncharacteristically serious. She felt immediately guilty. She'd always understood Shawn better than Lassiter had - the joking, the song and dance. Carlton didn't have the capacity for - or maybe he just didn't have the luxury. "What are you thinking, Shawn?" she asked, touching his arm.

He startled. "It's a date."

"What?" Juliet blinked. That was inappropriate. A date? This wasn't the time to-

"April 20th." Shawn grabbed a pen from her desk and wrote the numbers from Carlton's voicemail message in large print. He boxed off the first 8 digits. "That's a date. And maybe this is a time?"

"If he's trying to get a message out," Gus said, catching up, "then that means Shawn was right. This isn't a-" He stopped himself short at a look from Shawn, and Juliet silently thanked him - both of them, on Lassiter's behalf. "Whatever it was. It's not that. That means we can go to the Chief and get more people working on it. Right?" Shawn nodded. "But he is probably on vacation. His toothbrush, his groceries-"

"Which I saw in a vision," Shawn interrupted hastily. "Yes. I saw those things, the ones he said and any others he might randomly bring up without thinking."

"Wait. His toothbrush is gone? But he's clearly _not _on vacation-" Juliet pulled a drawer open and rummaged for a moment before coming up with Carlton's appointment book. She flipped to days previous. "Here. He _did_ leave town, Friday night, for a seminar on antique military munitions and weaponry. Fairfield Inn, Santa Clarita." She frowned at the tiny handwriting. "If that's a time, it's 5:43 am on Saturday morning. This says check out isn't until 11. The conference isn't even over until 4."

"Why do you have Lassiter's appointment book?" Gus wondered, sounding faintly creeped out.

Juliet dialed the number to the Fairfield Inn front desk. "I had to take over his appointments," she answered. "Hello! Hi. This is Detective Juliet O'Hara with the Santa Barbara Police Department. Yeah. I'm just calling to check on something, if you don't mind. Yes, of course." Juliet rolled her eyes and tapped in restlessness on her desk. "Hi. I'm trying to find out if a Carlton Lassiter checked in last night. His reservation number is- Oh, really? No, that doesn't surprise me at all. Thanks very much." She hung up. "He never checked in. The front desk said he made a big deal about the parking arrangements and how well-monitored they were, and whether or not the in-room safe would be adequate for storing his-" She airquoted. "-Stupid old guns. And then he never actually showed up."

"So what you're saying is, we have a case," Shawn said.

Juliet frowned.

Gus elbowed him. "We already had a case," he whispered.

"I know dude, just go with it," Shawn hissed back.

Juliet rolled her eyes.

* * *

They took over a conference room. On an easel at the head of the table, a large map of the area had been fastened, with a pin at Fairfield Inn, Santa Clarita. Lassie left the station just after 7:30. It took an hour and fifteen minutes to get from Santa Barbara to Santa Clarita. Concentric circles eddied out from the pin, denoting how far away Lassie could have got between 9 pm Friday night and 5:43 am Saturday morning using different modes of transportation.

"This is your priority, got it?" Juliet was saying at the open doorway. She waited for the uniformed officers to nod before turning into the room. "I've got as many units as we can spare looking for Victoria Parker. The Chief is going to reschedule whatever appointments she can and go to the rest for me."

Shawn frowned. "The Chief is-"

"I'm not saying it wasn't a fight, but after- I think she just knows. I'm not going to stop until I find him."

Shawn nodded, trying not to smile. He could be serious! But she was so cute when she was determined. "Okay! Wait for the sweetness." He fluttered his fingers through the air. "Wait for iiiiit... Got it. Lassie isn't in his car."

Juliet frowned. "You're right. The front desk at the hotel confirms that his car is still in the parking structure across the street. I've asked Santa Clarita PD to look it over for signs of struggle."

Shawn nodded, ignoring Gus' eyerolling. Sometimes being psychic was as easy as calling the hotel while Juliet was in Vick's office, but it didn't make success feel any less satisfying. Shawn put his hand over the map, tracing the outer most circle, then the next one in, stalling for time; knowing about Lassie's car had actually been his only bit of information. "Gus," he said. "Where did I say that doctor's office I sensed was, exactly?"

Gus gave him a look, but said, "You _said_ it was just north of Santa Barbara, here." He stuck a pin into the map and leaned close in. "What are you doing? You think the doctor had something to do it this?"

"No. Why, do you?"

"Doctor Moryma's office?" Juliet said, sweeping toward the map. "Why would Carlton's - I mean, what could he have to do with this?"

Shawn groaned inwardly. "I... don't know. _Yet_." Probably nothing. Dammit.

"We found his phone number on a scrap of paper in Lassiter's back yard."

Juliet frowned. "What were you doing at Lassiter's house?"

Shawn glared at Gus. "I... was led there. By the spirits." He fished the number out of his pocket. "I called it already."

"Got em!" Buzz pushed the door open and dropped the stack of photos onto the conference table. "Can I ask - What happened?"

The stack of photos slid forward. Right on top: the photo of Lassie's perp board, accusing them all of neglecting some very important detail. If only Shawn could figure out what it was. He turned back to the map, mentally collecting and discarding the names of every tiny town on the outer perimeter. If Lassiter had seen fit to note that time, it had to mean something, it had to be an attempt to give them a range in which to look. None of these towns stuck out in Shawn's memory.

"We don't know," Juliet replied vacantly.

Shawn turned around. Jules had the photo in her hand. "We'll find him. Don't worry."

"Worry," she shot back. "Can't you, just once?"

"Uhm, I'll let you guys get back to work." Buzz gave them all a sympathetic look and backed out of the room.

"Jules," Shawn started, but she wasn't finished.

"Look at this. He's done. We want there to be foul play because it means we can save him and everything can go back to normal, but it can't always go back to normal Shawn. The hard evidence we have - the pills, the doctor's appointments, the note, the neighborhood watch report - and now Mrs. Lassiter is missing."

"But- what about his car? The voicemail message?" Gus tried.

"Like you sensed," she snapped. Shawn listened mutely. "Red herrings. He's a better detective than you've ever given him credit for, Shawn. He wants you to go haring off after these leads. He wants us to look far away. He's probably holed up somewhere close, somewhere deserted... planning to... He probably never planned to go to the conference. He probably-"

"Jules. Jules!" Shawn moved forward to take her wrists and make her look at him. When she did, he caught her hand and took the photo. "Juliet," he murmured. "Let's think this through here..."

She shook her head. "He could be in danger of hurting himself or someone else. Look. _Look_ at this." She grabbed his hand and turned the photo in it so face him. "You told me yourself, he said almost this exact thing to you four years ago. He was done. And you just walked away from him. _I'm _not going to walk away from him."

She jerked out of his hands and stalked to the board.

Shawn stared after her, protest dying on his tongue. _I did not!_ he wanted to say. _We spent the whole next case spiking his koolaide with awesome sauce just to make him feel better_. But she wasn't going to listen. _And besides, _he thought with sudden realization. _She was right._ Well, not _right _right, but she was right about the red herring. The whole thing-

It's over, I'm done. The words flashed in his memory, on the board in Lassie's living room. No, no, under that. The photos. And the list of emails on Lassie's computer. Lassie's face after coming back from the little boy's room on Friday, pale, pained-

"Whoa whoa wait," Shawn said, feeling a bit like a real psychic might have. His spine felt a little numb from the excitement and cold realisation. "I got it. I mean, the spirits are telling me... Names are swimming in my vision. Andre Yast. Clive Brinkle. Tori Numma."

Juliet frowned. "Those are names from his files." She went for the stack of Lassie's monthlies and pulled a few out. "They're all really recent."

"They're splashed with red."

"Blood?"

"No," Gus said, picking up the photo and peering at it. "They're on his creepy board."

"Would a guy ready to end it all spend time painstakingly updating his perp board?"

"Lassiter might," Gus replied off-handedly. Shawn threw a death glare at him. "I mean, no. No he wouldn't."

Shawn swept his hand toward the file on Lassiter's house. "They dusted the marker for prints. I'm sensing they didn't find any."

Juliet rushed for the file and scanned it hastily. "No, they didn't. Shawn, what-"

Shawn squeezed his eyes shut. "Lassie never got the Chief's email confirmation of his time off, _or_ Mrs. Lassiter's second letter."

Gus held up the envelope. "You mean this letter right here, from his desk?"

"Precisely that letter, Gus. Strong psychic vibes are telling me that Lassie's delicate but masculine fingers never _touched_ that envelope."

Juliet spared one more moment in the room before she rushed out. Shawn and Gus followed in her wake. She barreled toward Lassie's desk and didn't even sit at his desk before tapping at the keyboard. She scrolled, scanning. "Shawn's right. Chief Vick's reply isn't in his inbox."

"Maybe he deleted it," Gus suggested.

"Nope," Shawn said, reaching over Juliet to scroll. "Eleven thousand five hundred and sixty two emails. This guy's not a deleter. Look, he doesn't even delete my weekly joke emails." He pointed at an example, complete with laughing emoticons in the subject. He bent down to look through Lassie's drawers, just in case. The almost empty bottle of anti-nausea medication rolled. Shawn froze in memory.

"Shawn?" Juliet said, sounding worried. "What is it?"

"Dude," Shawn murmured. "Refresh my memory. What are the side effects of taking Adderal without a prescription?"

"Nausea, headache-"

Shawn pulled the anti-nausea medication and ibuprofen from the drawer and set them up on the desk in evidence.

"-Insomnia, weight loss, palpitations. Psychologically...? Paranoia."

Shawn gestured accusingly at the computer, although Lassie was paranoid enough normally that just changing his password wasn't an indictment.

But Gus wasn't finished. "Anxiety, psychotic episodes, and severe depression."

Jules frowned. "Half of those are just normal Carlton," she said. "And half of _those_ are because of _you_."

"Ouch, Jules. That hurts. Just trust me on this - I know what it looks like. Don't ask." He pulled out the prescription bottles and handed one to Gus. "Do those look right?"

Gus popped the tops off and nodded. "And full. I told you, he hasn't been taking these."

Shawn looked at the bottle, trying to force his thoughts to focus in on the one clue that would break everything open - Dr. Moryma. "You checked out Dr. Moryma in your database, right? Are you sure nothing sounded... off about him?"

"I'm sure, Shawn. I told you-"

"You just want to get into their metaphorical drug pants."

"That's not why."

"Admit it. You totally want to make sweet love to Dr. Lou Vega's medicine cabinet."

"It's Dr. Lobego, Shawn. And it's not a cabinet, it's more of a - you know what Shawn -"

"Wait." Juliet straightened, brows furrowed in thought. "Lobego? I'll be right back." She grabbed all four bottles and jogged toward the conference room.

"Dude what was that about?" Shawn whispered, watching her go.

"She probably just remembered a clue. Not everyone has a clue-face, Shawn."

"What? No, man. I-. She's been totally mean."

"What do you expect, Shawn? Her partner's missing and you can barely even pretend to be serious."

"I am serious! I'm _very_ serious. I just don't..."

"I know that, Shawn. But Juliet doesn't. You need to stop acting like a jackass."

Shawn sighed and shook his head. "Et tu, Gussy? Duly noted. We need to see the Chief."

The Chief was shuffling a stack of reports into a file folder when they threw the door open. She looked harried; her hair was slightly out of place and she still had a napkin tucked into her collar from the lunch she'd had at her desk. She startled when the door hit the wall. "Mr. Spencer! Is there something I can do for you?"

"I have reason to believe that Detective Lassiter has been kidnapped!"

Vick stared. "We already have reason to believe that. Remember? I gave you the conference room? I'm taking over all of O'Hara's administrative duties?"

Shawn raised his brows. "Yes, of course. Right. What I mean is, I have even _more_ reason-"

"The point, Mr. Spencer."

"The point? My point. I need to see the email Lassie sent you."

Vick frowned, but then she tapped at her computer. "Here it is." She swiveled the monitor to face him.

Shawn hitched his bottom up onto her desk to read it; Gus watched over his shoulder.

Vick wrinkled her nose. "Mr. Spencer, are you _sitting_ on my-"

"Don't worry, Chief. I have in the not so distant past been described as svelte. Oh, here, that. 'It's been a long couple of weeks and I could really use the time off?' That doesn't sound like him."

"It sounds normal, Shawn," Gus murmured.

Shawn kept reading. It was pretty much as the Chief had said, bland statements about not wanting to make a big deal about it, not having his phone on. "But we know he's not on vacation."

Chief Vick frowned as the light dawned. "Then where did this email come from?"

"Not Lassie," Shawn said, triumphant. "And whatever you said back, he didn't get it."

"Oh, may I?" Gus said, holding his hands up. "I'm something of an amateur expert." Vick backed away from her desk to give him access to her keyboard. Shawn leaned over more to keep the monitor in view as Gus swiveled it back to face him. "I'm checking the header information on the original email. Here, does that look like his email address?" He pointed.

Vick looked over his shoulder. "Yes..." she said uncertainly.

"Dude, what's that?" Shawn tapped on the screen, one line lower.

Gus frowned and clicked around. "It's a reply-to address. Normally, it'd be hidden in the header information which nobody looks at. It's routing all replies to a different address." He highlighted it for the others to see more clearly. "It's just a random string of letters and numbers." He opened a browser and typed in the host's web address. "It's a free webmail client. This could be anyone."

Vick was already on the phone. As it rang, she said, "I'm asking for a court order to get the IP logs from the company for the last month of use for this email address. In the meantime-"

The door banged open again. "I got it!" Jules cried, waving a folder in the air. "Dr. Kurt Lobego."

Vick waved them away as her call was answered. Shawn hopped off the desk and joined Gus and Juliet just inside the door to Vick's office.

"Lassiter busted him twelve years ago for - you guessed it - stalking Miss Victoria Parker." She looked at them expectantly.

Shawn stared. Gus elbowed him and muttered, "Mrs. Lassiter!"

"Oh. Oh! Dude-"

Juliet held up her hand to stop him. "Lassiter's been keeping tabs on this guy for over a decade. His notes are extremely thorough. Lobego's clean. Every note of suspicion has been followed up with a reasonable explanation."

"Then he has a partner! Jules- We have to find him. Someone's going through a lot of trouble to convince us Lassie's off offing himself." The image of a broken bottle in the fake fireplace sparked in his memory. Shawn fingertips flew to his temples. "I see bottles. Bottles of evil, smashed and broken, but they've already done their work!"

"He was poisoned? Drugged!" Juliet exclaimed. "His moodiness, the paranoia - side effects of Adderal. Stalking Mrs. Lassiter-"

"He was stalking Victoria Parker?" the Chief cut in, hanging up the phone.

"No," Shawn said. Things were becoming clearer by the moment. "Check the scotch-"

"Scotch? Alcohol heightens the effects-" Gus murmured into Shawn's ear.

Shawn's stomach plummeted. Of course it did. And if he stopped getting dosed, he'd go into withdrawal. Shawn squeezed his eyes shut and the room disappeared.

The broken bottle of scotch - the photos on the wanted board - the photo in Lassie's desk drawer - wait. The man in the photo, the blurry man in the corner he'd assumed was the man Mrs Lassiter was seeing - was actually a blurry, younger Lassiter, happy and with better hair. No wonder Shawn hadn't recognized him. So the man _taking_ the photo was - the rose on the doorstep - MDR-THB - Juliet's voice: _somewhere deserted - _the map, the much smaller area closer to home that Juliet had been focusing on.

"The neighborhood watch... The report! Give it to me!" Shawn insisted. Juliet pushed it into his hands, confused. He flipped it open and - the phone number. The originating phone number. "I wondered what felt off about that doctor's office. What self-respecting doctor answers his own phone?"

"What are you saying, Shawn?"

"I'm saying... crap. We have to find Lassiter, and fast. I know where he is. I'm sensing - this might end up a suicide after all."

* * *

The shot startled him. Even though he'd known it was coming. He'd been railing at the door, screaming until he was hoarse, pounding until his hands were raw and swollen. She pleaded, for his life, for hers. And then there was a shot, and it startled him into silence.

Oh God.

A moment later, the door opened. The _other_ bastard pulled him up by his shirt collar and pushed him into the other room. She was sprawled indecently where she'd fallen, the pool of blood rich and warm and smelling too much like the thousands of crime scenes which should have inured him to the sense of hot sick panic.

Carlton fell to his knees at the edge of it, but he couldn't bring himself to breech the perimeter - the steadily encroaching edge of the - but the giddy part of his brain reasoned that it was only habit, do not disturb the crime scene.

Screw the crime scene. He threw himself onto her body, shaking her shoulders. There was life in her yet, and she croaked something he couldn't understand. Behind them, the bastards talked quietly, derision in their voices but he couldn't understand them either. He couldn't understand anything. Another sick flashing moment later, she was gone. Her hand had left a sticky trail on his cheek and then flopped onto her chest, still.

"Couldn't save her." The voice wasn't his, but it might as well have been. "It's over. Isn't it?"

Carlton nodded mutely.

The gun slid toward him and the door closed. It's over. He reached for the gun.


	5. Chapter 5: Believe That

**56 Hours Earlier...**

Carlton pulled into a space in the parking structure across from the Fairfield Inn and rested his hands on his steering wheel, contemplating just sleeping in his car and driving back home in the morning. But he _liked_ these conferences, and he'd already paid for the admission and the hotel and his friend from the Reinactment team had maybe possibly gotten him a spot as a speaker on a panel; he was still waiting for confirmation on that, but just in case, he'd brought his Remington Zouave complete with bayonet and scabbard and he was sure to be a hit with it. It was easily one of the most expensive things he owned after the divorce - if he was going to go through with this little vacation, he needed to get it into the safe in his hotel room.

Fine. For twenty hours, he could handle not being a cop. Not _actively_ being a cop, anyway. For twenty hours, he could manage not worrying about Victoria or O'Hara and just ... worry about answering questions on a topic he knew forward and backward. That should have been reassuring. He patted himself in a last ditch effort to remember to have forgotten something, but he had no such luck. Gun, wallet, hotel reservation - no reason to ditch and go home. Unless you counted the headache. He didn't.

All right then. Off-duty. Starting ._..nnnNNNNow_.

Carlton got out of the car and straightened his tie, going over opening joke ideas in case Morty had actually managed getting him the panel, and his hands were in his pockets looking for a pen to write them down when he was grabbed from behind. Then there was a cloth over his mouth and no chance of fighting back as the chloroform blanked his mind and vision and hearing and...

* * *

He startled to wakefulness in the back seat of a car that wasn't his. His head ached, his vision was fuzzy, he felt ill. He tried to recount the events just prior to the - He reached for his gun.

It wasn't there. His wrists were duct-taped together. He felt in his pocket for his cell phone. Gone.

"Take it easy, Kojak."

Carlton groaned. "Kojak was bald," he mumbled, still feeling dizzy. He struggled to sit up fully, trying to catalog details of his environment. The radio wasn't on, so he couldn't get region-identifying call numbers. The terrain was generically woodsy, vaguely familiar without being recognizable. He looked the driver over, what of his profile he could see from the backseat. He didn't recognize him. Carlton's gaze stumbled down drunkenly from the guy's jawline to his hands on the wheel, to the steering column and the keys in the ignition. The car was a rental, but he couldn't see the company name or logo from his vantage point. He could see a claim tag on another loop though. Maybe a valet tag? He took note of it: **MDR-THB [04202010 0543]**. After a moment of fuzzy thought, he wrote the first set of numbers off as a date, which hopefully meant it was only Saturday. But he still had no idea where he was.

"So what is this?" he slurred, managing to get the venom into his voice he usually reserved for the lowest of lowlife scum in the interrogation room.

"Just your average everyday kidnapping," the driver replied.

"Yeah. Right. I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to pull over and get out of the car."

The guy's laughter was disappointing. "Not a chance. Believe that."

_Believe that._ The phrase piqued some long-filed-away memory. _Believe that, believe that_-

"Are you kidding with this? You obviously know I'm a police officer. _Head_ Detective. People will be looking for me."

"Don't count on it. They all think you're on vacation."

"What?" The car bounced hard as they hit a bump. "They think I'm - what?"

"On. Vacation."

"Oh, right. You just called up my Chief and told her I was taking vacation-"

"Something like that."

Carlton frowned. He thought for a moment about the strangeness of the chief over the last couple of days, asking him to go over Monday's briefing with O'Hara, telling him to get some rest. "Well there's no way she'd believe that."

"Well, she did. The fact is, you're out. Of. Luck. Asshole."

"A- Now you look here, you-"

"Take it easy," the guy drawled, waggling Carlton's gun lazily under the rear-view mirror.

Carlton made a sour face and collapsed back against the seat, pulling his bound hands up and bowing his head so he could massage his temple. He catalogued his situation again. Headache, slight nausea - from the chloroform, he assumed. No injuries. Missing his gun; he'd only brought the two, and - dammit, his Remington-! He dropped his hands back into his lap. As soon as he felt strength leech back into his limbs, he was going to strike out, duct tape bedamned. But until then-

"This isn't going to work," he said.

"I thought we went over this. Everyone you know thinks you're-"

"On vacation. Yeah, I remember. But you didn't think of everything." He tried to look smug.

The guy looked into his rearview mirror, concerned. That was the look Carlton'd been hoping for.

"Yeah. You might as well just drop me back off at my car. You aren't smart enough to have this all planned out."

"We took care of everything, loverboy," the driver snapped irritably.

Carlton was careful not to show his hand. He wasn't that good at bluffing, he was painfully aware. But he pulled on all of his training and considerable natural determination and was able to roll his eyes with a little knowing smile. Now he knew there was a "we," and "loverboy" ... was a clue. He just didn't know what it meant yet.

"What!" the driver demanded, turning almost all the way around in his seat to look at him. They nearly went off the road. The driver spun back around to over-correct and slammed on the brakes. They skidded to a stop on the dirt road. Carlton braced himself the best he could with bound hands; he slid across the backseat and banged into the car door, but allowed himself a satisfied grin.

"What!" the driver repeated, pulling Carlton's gun and and shaking it in his general direction.

Carlton raised his brows. "Oh now that's just unsafe," he observed mildly, watching the guy's blood pressure increase another few points. "I thought this was just your average everyday kidnapping. You know the penalty for killing a cop, right? This is no good for you." He smiled again and looked out the window, bored. "Someone's gonna get caught," he added singsong.

"Caught? No way. You're - you're just stalling. You're-"

"Look," Carlton interrupted. "You guys are just out of your league. For example, I _know_ you didn't cover all your bases, because the only person who can change my voicemail message per department protocol is _me_, and I didn't do it." Carlton watched his armed captor carefully, measuring the flit of emotions across that ugly mug. Concern, doubt. But he needed - "And I'm not going to," he added.

The guy lowered his brow, and shifted in his seat, tightening his grip on Carlton's gun. Ah, there it was. Rage, desire for control. The need to have power over someone else. "Yes you are," the driver growled. He reached into his pocket with his other hand and then threw Carlton's phone at him. "You're gonna do what I say."

"No. I'm not."

"_Yes_," the guy said, rattling the gun at him, "you _are_." Carlton opened his mouth to decline the offer again, and the guy in a whirlwind of anger practically leapt into the backseat to press the muzzle of the gun to Carlton's temple. "You _are_."

In that position, the man's body stretched uncomfortably over the driver's seat to reach him, awkwardly positioned without any leverage, it might have been an easy thing to try to hit him or disarm him, even with Carlton's bound hands. But it also would have been an easy thing to get shot in the process, because he'd done a really good job of getting the better of his opponent's unstable psychology, right to the brink of crazy rage - which of course had been his goal, but still. Carlton nodded slowly, pretending to be giving in.

"Okay," he said. "Let's just calm down." He reached over for the phone and picked it up slowly, demonstratively. He flipped it open. "I'm doing it. Just. Just get back up there okay? I don't want to accidentally get shot, here."

The guy snarled unintelligibly at him and slammed himself back into the front seat, where he kept Carlton's gun trained on him.

Carlton blew out a breath in relief. Okay, this was good. Phone still existed, and it was with him. A few discreet button presses assured him that the GPS tracking was turned on; hopefully O'Hara would think to look for it. He dialed his voicemail box and pressed through the menus, thinking fast to compose something that would get someone's attention at the station. "How long am I on vacation for?" he grumbled.

"A week. Get on with it."

"Fine," Carlton said, then waited for the beep. "This is Head Detective Carlton Lassiter of the Santa Barbara Police Department. I am on vacation and will return on April 26th. If you are in need of immediate attention, please call my partner, Detective Shawn Spencer. If this is in reference to case number 04202010-0543, please reference item MDR-THB when speaking to him."

He snapped the phone closed and made a quiet movement to put it into his pocket, hoping the guy didn't notice or didn't think it was important, but as usual, his luck was as shy as a pigeon-toed ballerina on opening night of a sold-out performance, faced with a million critics armed with tomatoes and perfect aim. He slapped the phone into the guy's outstretched hand at the threat of the gun and collapsed back into the backseat of the car.

"Where are we going, anyway?" he said. Should have figured that out before changing his message. No use grumbling about that now. The car jerked as the driver started them moving down the rutted dirt path.

"Somewhere calm, quiet. Nobody around for miles," the guy drawled, complacent and smug since he'd gotten to bully someone.

"Riiiight." Carlton looked out the window for clues. Didn't matter. His phone was on and almost fully charged, and as soon as someone called his voicemail, they'd be tracking his phone's GPS. Except - "What are you doing?" he said hastily as the car slowed on a rickety old wooden bridge.

The driver grinned lecherously at him in the rear view and rolled down his window. Carlton's eyes widened as the driver's hand arced through the air with this phone. In a four-and-a-half count, his hopes had vanished into the shallow water below with a comic _ploop_.

Dammit.

* * *

Ten minutes later, they pulled up to an abandoned cabin in a clearing in the forest. Carlton guessed the time around 7 am. He was pushed into a tiny room in the back of the three room cabin where the windows were boarded up. His limbs felt like hundred pound weights had been strapped to his wrists and ankles.

His headache had gotten worse. There was this aura thing around everything, even in the dark of his cell. He groaned and covered his eyes, trying to think through the pulsing pressure. The nausea he'd been self-medicating for the last month or so prickled at his nerves and he'd only been left alone for maybe twenty minutes before he banged on the door.

"What!" called his captor through it.

"I have to - I need the restroom!" Carlton called back.

The door opened a crack. Carlton looked longingly past the guy's darkened profile to the freedom beyond, but he felt clammy and sick and his limbs held no strength.

The guy frowned. "What's wrong with you?"

Carlton shrugged, embarrassed. "I have a... shrimp... situation."

"So?"

"So! Let me use the restroom!"

"Suck it up."

"Suck it- Look here, slick. You have to-" He cut himself off and frowned, bound hands on his stomach in anticipation of impending badness.

The guy smirked. "Be good and I'll get you a bucket."

Carlton's face twisted and he lunged for the crack with what little strength he could summon. The driver yowled in surprise and gave Carlton a shove that sent him to the floor.

"Guess it's gonna be a long day," he sneered, slamming the door shut.

Carlton rolled to his side, breathing deeply to try to get his stomach under control.

He felt much better a few hours later. His prison smelled worse, but he felt better. His headache had eased slightly and his eyes had gotten used to the dark, but that was where the good news ended. He was still weak, slumped against the farthest wall from the door. He didn't know what that was about, but it wasn't helping his steadily darkening mood. He'd loosened the tape binding his hands using his teeth but then all he could make himself do was sit there with his thoughts, wondering if someone would get his message.

Even if they did, they couldn't trace his phone GPS because it was under at least two feet of water. They wouldn't know where to look.

Unless maybe Spencer - oh God. Please please please don't take his message to mean he wanted Spencer on the case. Then again, the fake psychic might be his only chance.

Well that was depressing.

More than depressing. It was unthinkably horrifying, and so desperately true - Carlton let his head drop back against the wall with a thud. It _would_ be Spencer. His luck didn't allow for any other possibility. He needed a plan to escape before Spencer came to his rescue, because he was getting a rolling lurching feeling in his stomach that had nothing to do with any kind of nausea; he wouldn't be able to keep it together if he had to be rescued. If _Shawn_ had to rescue him.

Carlton went over his inventory again for probably the fortieth time since he'd been tossed into his joke of a cell. Hands still bound but he was wearing down the tape just by sweating and moving and picking with his teeth. Vision still covered with a glaze of sparking, glaring migraine-style aura, but not increasing in intensity. No longer nauseous, but sense of smell? Check and double check. Ugh. Still dizzy - side effects of chloroform should have worn off. Maybe he'd been struck on the head as well? He didn't remember and his head ached, so he couldn't really tell. Other than the possible concussion - sounding like a better theory all the time as the smell of vomit in the corner threatened to instigate another bout of nausea - he was uninjured. Except that he was so _weak_.

_So weak._ His mother's voice pinged off the inner walls of his skull like a shrieking banshee, real enough that she could have been standing right in front of him.

"Oh, shut up," he said wearily into the empty room. She was a harsh and demanding woman, but she loved him. His probable concussion was going to have to do better than that.

It didn't get the chance. He'd lost track of how many hours he'd been listing things and making plans and discarding plans and arguing with the gold-pink tinged shine glinting off what he could see in the dim light, but it couldn't have been more than 1.56 million. When the door opened and threw afternoon light onto his face, he was quick to shield it with his nearly not-bound-anymore hands. The burst of sunlight brought bile into his throat, but he sneered through it, swallowing.

"How're you feeling, Officer?"

"It's _Detective_."

"Oh, a promotion. How nice for you."

The shadow in the doorway coalesced into a face with features, and Carlton's sluggish brain put them together with a memory of a face he hadn't seen with his own eyes in twelve years.

"Lobego," he growled. "What's your game?"

Kurt Lobego smiled kindly. "No game, Detective. Didn't you miss me?"

Carlton frowned murderously, and half a moment later lunged for the man in the doorway. Lobego's henchman, Carlton's kidnapper, stepped in to stop him in his tracks and toss him back to the floor.

"Now now Brutus-" Lobego started, but Brutus rubbed his knuckles and said "You leave Dr Lobego alone!" before Lobego could stop him.

"Brutus?" Carlton wheezed. "Really? What, did you pick him up at Henchmen R Us?"

Lobego frowned, regarding Carlton thoughtfully. When he didn't formulate a retort, Carlton prompted, "You know Brutus _betrayed_ Caesar, right?" It didn't work. Carlton was careful not to make any sort of weird face, but he was starting to get worried. His usual tactic of poking at obvious points of entry wasn't going to work if Lobego didn't rise to the bait. "He's -he's not very bright, either," he pointed out, gesturing with his forehead at the hulking Brutus.

"He caught you easily enough. Didn't even need to use force. I would have been surprised, once. Now I know - you've just gone soft. That's really all you ever wanted after all, isn't it? To get the big promotion and then sit on your hands. Solve the case and get the girl, solve the case and get the praise. Where's the old solve the case and the case is solved Lassiter that I used to know?" He tsked at Carlton's stunned face. "Dead and gone. Only this disappointment left." He turned on his heel and walked away. Brutus leered at Carlton for a moment before pulling the door closed and locking it.

Carlton stared. Each word echoed in the dark room. He imagined he could see them bouncing cheerfully off the walls, creating cascading rings like tossing stones into a pond. He tried to dodge them when they came close, these echoes, but he failed, every time. They stuck into him, sharp and clear like they were being spoken anew each time even though he knew he was alone in the room. Carlton rolled onto his back where he lay in the center of the room, staring at nothing, bleeding hope out onto the floor.

* * *

When he next awoke, it was with renewed strength. His perception was very clear, and his mind was sharp. His vision when he opened his eyes was blurry, but it didn't seem to matter much. He was hungry, and thirsty, that was all. He had the sense of having had a very profound dream, the content of which he could no longer remember, but it made him sad and angry and ashamed but mostly sad.

But the point was, he was lucid enough to form a Plan.

He sat up, and then he tried to stand. When he didn't immediately fall over, he took a couple of shaky steps toward the boarded up windows to try to judge the time by the light coming in through the cracks. Damn. Morning again? His chances of surviving, statistically speaking, dropped severely every hour he was missing, after the first 24. And it'd been... if it was 7 am, about 36 already. Most of which he'd been unconscious during, or else raving like a very quiet mental patient.

Carlton shook his head to clear it and steel himself. He didn't feel as weak as the day before, but he didn't feel strong either. He listened at the door to see if his captors will still there. If there was only one, he could probably make it. His plan was very rough, but it was doable if he could manage to run fast and think on his feet, trust his instincts. The only thing he knew for sure is that he had to head for the bridge. He was sure a busier road was just past it - it must have been what had startled him awake in the car the morning before. Get to the bridge, get to the road, flag down a car, get to civilization, call O'Hara, get picked up, go back to the cabin with hundreds of guns, and if the other officers wanted guns they could bring their own.

He was about to try kicking the door down when it opened.

Brutus was standing there, looking at him with a frown.

"What are you doing?"

"Uhm," Carlton said, putting his foot back down on the floor. "Nothing?"

"Oh. Good. Cuz Dr Lobego says I'm allowed to do whatever I have to to keep you from escaping. I ain't afraid of hitting you."

"You seem different today."

"Dr Lobego says that'll happen when you need the kind of medicine I need. But I don't mind."

"Hey, what if you just let me go? I'll tell Dr Lobego that I hit you and you had no choice."

Brutus frowned. "I kind of want to hit you. But it's supposed to be a last resort. He wants to help you."

"Help m- Now you look here you overgrown child-man-"

"Brutus," he interrupted, like Carlton had just forgotten his name.

Carlton rolled his eyes and continued, "_Brutus_, look." And then while Brutus was off-guard, Carlton made a run for the tiny space between the bigger man and the door frame.

And made it through only to be caught around the waist by Lobego's henchman. He twisted and dropped and threw his arms up, dead weight, hoping to slip out of Brutus' bear hug. He almost succeeded, but Brutus put the squeeze on under his armpits in an awkward panicked attempt to keep Carlton from escaping, pushing them both forward to crash to the floor. The big man went down on top, whooshing the air out of Carlton's chest just as a sick popping sound cracked out of his shoulder. The moment of frozen nothingness was flooded with a swell of agony, but adrenaline had the majority vote and Carlton was able to cock his foot up and back, connecting with the man's crotch in a solid blow.

Brutus rolled off Carlton's back to yowl incoherently, and Carlton picked himself up to run out the front door.

* * *

Carlton Lassiter sat against a tree at the edge of the babbling brook - dress shoes, blue trousers, white shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbows - reclined against the trunk of the tree with his arms folded up across his chest. He stared out desperately over the water, the opposite bank, the treeline in the distance.

No one was coming for him. And he felt so heavy, so distracted and morose and on the verge of breaking and he didn't understand this level of desolation but it was leeching any energy he once might have had. He wanted to shrink into nothing, and he couldn't pinpoint when it had started or why, or exactly how he'd gotten out to the middle of nowhere out of reach of any kind of backup. It was a little late to be going through teenaged angst, and nothing had happened to provoke - nothing had happened.

Except - it had been months since Yin, but he couldn't deny - that's when he'd started having a scotch before bed every night. He told himself it was because of work, because he'd been doing double duty so O'Hara could take her recommended two weeks without worrying - and he told himself that it was to be expected. He couldn't wind down enough to get any sleep unless he had a drink, because he was working twice as hard and no one could expect anything else.

But this new clarity - it was obvious now he'd been lying to himself. Juliet had been so fragile right after the Yin situation, folded right into his arms like he could offer her some comfort. For those first few weeks, he thought he had.

But she bounced back so deftly, so quickly - took her recommended two weeks and then came right back to work with a smile - while he spluttered along in what-if and came-so-close, paddling feverishly without reaching shore. Like what had happened didn't even scratch her surface. Some people are just built differently.

So when he drank, he wasn't just trying to sleep after a long day. He was trying to ... to calm the constant racing of his heart, the reflexive reach for his gun whenever a cat kicked over a trash can in the alley. Ease the paranoia, the - medicate the looping, cyclic argument rolling around in his head every minute of every day - and it worked less and less so he drank more and more and - he was no better than a low-life addict.

It was suddenly so clear.

But it didn't stop the all-consuming feeling of dread and despair that gnawed at him in waves. He couldn't concentrate, and that was also a new feeling. Paranoia, heightened startle, worry and high alert - he reasoned those away as Yin-related. But this intense heavy horrible _sadness_. He couldn't figure it out.

A snap in the forest behind him brought his wandering attention into sharp relief. He'd rested too long. Damn damn. There was a taunting shout in the distance, and he comforted himself with that it was too far away to be intelligible. He judged the intervening distance to be around a quarter-mile, not much of a lead, but something considering the terrain. Still, he'd failed to leave as invisible a trail as he might have with his hands free. He worried the end of the tape still loosely binding his wrists until it came loose, then hastily threw it away and headed for the water.

Bridge, bridge. They'd come over... that way! He slid down the bank for cover and tried not to splash at the reedy edges and attract attention. But his shoulder burned and he couldn't lift his arm more than an inch, so it was slower going in the slippery mud than he'd have liked. The shouting was getting closer, but it was headed toward the tree he'd rested at before moving on, and the bridge was just ahead. If he could maintain the cover of the creek bank and get to the bridge, hopefully he'd lose Lobego and Brutus.

If - ow dammit! - if he could manage to actually get there. He slipped for the fifteen-billionth time, his foot sinking into the mud and threatening to leave its shoe behind. He tried to catch himself, but his arm wouldn't hold his weight, which was more frustrating than painful given the circumstances. His right pantleg was completely sodden and caked with mud by the time he reached the cover of the bridge.

Carlton huddled under the bridge trying to catch his breath, trying to keep the sharp focus adrenaline gave him, but in relative safety, that haze of despair threatened to shut his mind down again. His head ached, his shoulder burned, and he'd been disarmed by a single man. Some detective he was. No wonder O'Hara'd been reluctant to get back to their regular duties. He'd balk too, if _he_ was who he was counting on.

"That way!" the voice directed, and Carlton knitted his brows. Lobego, he thought. He kept silent as the quietly bickering voices crept closer to his location, apparently having figured that he'd go for the bridge. That he'd hide _under_ the bridge rather than sprinting away toward safety in plain sight didn't appear to have occurred to them and Carlton suppressed a sigh of relief.

Which was when the soft bank under his foot gave out and he slipped into the soft mud with a tiny splash. He froze. They froze. Then they went back to bickering. Carlton relaxed, looking off with annoyance that he'd been abducted by two imbeciles. And then he stared at the napkin from the taco place on Mercy Street as it floated serenely downstream and out of protective cover. Belately, he put his hand over his trouser pocket.

"Hey..." came a voice from above him. "Look..." Then it got deadly quiet, just before a flurry of motion. Carlton swiveled toward the sound of someone sliding down the bank on his right, whipping a branch up from the ground as he spun. He let his momentum slam into Brutus at mid height and when he saw that the guy wasn't going to be able to keep his balance, Carlton whirled to meet Lobego sliding down the bank on the other side of the bridge. He tackled the smaller man, but they didn't go down, instead exchanging blows. Carlton grit his teeth; a one-armed man wasn't much of a threat, but he was determined.

It didn't matter. Though the smaller man managed a couple of decent smacks, Carlton had height and training on him and managed to send him to the mud. But the Brutus was on his feet again and had him in a chokehold before he could wipe the blood from his mouth. Carlton tore at the arm around his throat in a panic and tried to hold on even as the world was going fuzzy and dark at the edges, but he was already weak, his head was already spinning, he didn't have a chance.

Carlton went limp and fell forward into the water. The cool splash woke him up enough to realise he was being pulled from the water onto the bank. Enough to pry his eyes open, enough to see the syringe in Lobego's hand. Before he passed fully out, he heard Brutus say, "This is so much harder than just dosing his scotch."

* * *

"What do you want?" he slurred.

Lobego looked at him kindly. "Do you know why you're here?"

Carlton stared at the floor. He'd waked up in the corner of his cell drained, unaccountably sad, in pain, nauseous, and incredibly clear-headed. It was not a good combination and had given him the unusual opportunity to go over with a fine-toothed comb everything he'd ever done incorrectly in his entire life. But now he was in a chair, being talked at.

"No," he snapped. "But I guess you want to tell me."

Lobego shook his head. "That's not for me to say," he began, but Carlton cut him off.

"You're pissed at me for putting you away twelve years ago," he said. "Look, I get it. I pride myself on being on a very large number of shit-lists, so believe me when I say that not only am I not surprised you hold a grudge, but it actually makes me happy to know I've done such a good job."

"That's not a very healthy attitude, Officer."

"_Detective_."

"Right."

"So what. You've been nursing your ego for over a decade? Waiting for the right moment to get the jump on me? You're pathetic."

"I'm pathetic? Let's talk about you for a moment here. Do you even know what day it is?"

"Sunday," Carlton answered immediately. When the joker across from him smiled, his heart dropped into his ass. Wasn't it Sunday? Sunday evening. Yeah, he'd woken up in the back of Brutus' car yesterday morning, Saturday, and then escaped this morning and then... Right?

He must not have schooled his face well enough, because Lobego leaned forward. "You think you're hot shit, don't you _Detective_. Well, you aren't. She'd never go for a dim-witted asshole compensating with a gun-"

"Whoa, whoa, wait. This is about _Victoria_?" Carlton scoffed. "This is rich."

"This is not about her!" Lobego snapped, then composed himself. "This is about you." He stood from the other chair.

Carlton flinched - no, he didn't _flinch_, he merely braced himself - but Lobego stopped, chuckling. "I'm going to give you something-"

Carlton pulled up on the tape binding his wrists to the chair arms, ignoring the burning throb in his shoulder - he didn't remember popping it back into place, but that must have happened at some point. He half stood anyway, growling.

Lobego lowered his brows and called out for Brutus, who pushed Carlton back into his chair ungently. He held him there and snarled into his ear, but Carlton only had eyes for Lobego, approaching cautiously now with a syringe. "I just want to give you something for the pain," he murmured, gesturing with his eyebrows at Carlton's shoulder.

"I don't need anything," Carlton spat, lurching forward again and yelping as he quirked the injured tendons. Dammit.

"Clearly, you do."

"No I don't," he gasped, feeling his breath start to come more quickly as panic started to set in. No no, he willed, stay calm. Figure it out. How much training do you have? How many years of experience dealing with high stress situations? But just earlier that day - maybe - he'd made a fatal mistake in resting too long, _thinking_. He clearly wasn't okay. He struggled feebly but couldn't dislodge Brutus as Lobego came at him with the syringe and poked it into his arm. It was cold going in, or that could have been his imagination, tracing the course of whatever it was through his veins out of his control. He imagined his skin turning black little by little as it was tainted, right up to his shoulder and then spreading across his chest, up his neck, down to his stomach, over his hipbones and into his legs and feet, toes, sinking into his tendons and ligaments and cells. No no no no_ no_-

* * *

He was thirsty. And hungry, although they said hunger was actually the first sign of dehydration. He couldn't remember the last time he'd had anything to eat or drink, or even what day it was, but it was probably too soon to worry about kidney failure. Carlton Lassiter thought about the glittering bottle of scotch in his house in Santa Barbara with a longing that quickly turned to disgust. Too late for that.

"Victoria." His voice sounded raspy, probably from the dehydration. Not at all from the regret. Nope. "Victoria," he said again.

She didn't look at him. "You need help, Carlton."

He nodded, and then he was falling, and then he was jerking awake, cold from sweat and blinking in the afternoon sun streaming mercilessly through the window.

Yes, he thought ruefully. It was too late for everything. He'd been gone too long, and no one had come, and he couldn't successfully get away when he'd been sane, and he wasn't that, any more. He hadn't dreamt of Victoria in... years? Well. Months. Days? But recently didn't count - obviously she was on his mind, since he'd been checking out the report of stalking in her area. The report about _Lobego_. No. That didn't make sense. He'd checked Lobego out, and the doctor had been right where he'd been for the last ten years - peacefully practicing psychiatry a comfortable state and a half away from Santa Barbara.

Oh. Obviously. The report was about _Brutus_.

But if they just wanted to draw him out, why check out Victoria's ... Because Lobego didn't know they'd been sepa- _divorced_? That was... not exactly a secret. He seemed like he'd put too much thought into the plan to not have checked on thaaa-oh shit. Oh. Shit. No, no-

Okay. He needed to find out- Step one, he needed to find out where Victoria was, that she was all right, without drawing too much attention to her. Without making it seem like he cared. Without - without adding her to the plan if she wasn't already figured in.

Shit.

He didn't get a chance to formulate anything solid, because the door opened again. Like they knew he was awake and lucid. Like they were watching. Even though there were no cameras in the room. Even though - maybe they were hidden. Maybe there was a listening device - maybe he'd been talking aloud without realizing-

"How are we feeling, Detective?"

"Already asked me that," Carlton ground out, tongue thick and leaden. Now that he was thinking about it, he wasn't sure he could remember Lobego actually having asked him that. Had he imagined it? He blinked hard to regain focus.

"That was several days ago," Lobego said smoothly, sitting in a chair Brutus had conjured for him.

Oh good. He hadn't imagined it. He also didn't exactly remember several days having gone by, but...

"What are you doing?" Carlton managed, even though he'd meant to sit up straight with his shoulders square and say _what in the hell do you think you're doing with me? You are gonna go down so fast your head will spin. Do you really think you can get away with this? What's the rest of your plan supposed to be? Going to talk me to death?_ in an effort to get information on whether this really was the extent of the plan or if Lobego would tip his hand about any other participants.

As plans went, his execution needed work.

Lobego chuckled at him. Which pissed him off, but somehow he couldn't muster the appropriate burning resentment and/or righteous indignation. _That_ was a strange feeling. A naked kind of feeling. Oh he didn't like it at all.

"You seem confused. A little off-balance, maybe?"

Carlton blinked hard again - couldn't make his vision resolve, his fingers felt like they were attached to someone else's arm that his brain could control. Weird kind of feeling. But he met Lobego's eye and rallied.

"You're a psychologist, you tell me." Carlton Lassiter sat in an uncomfortable chair, scowling hard at the man across from him.

"_Psychiatrist_," the man insisted. "I am a psychiatrist. Psychologists want to talk about your feelings, get into your head. Do you want to talk about your feelings, Detective?"

Lassiter curled his lip in disgust. "No. Not with you, you-"

"Not with _anyone_," the psychiatrist corrected. He got up and paced the room.

Lassiter watched him, wary, but he had to concede the point, lest he be pressed into talking about his sessions with Madeleine Spencer. "What of it?" he snarled.

The psychiatrist spun to him, smiling as though he'd won. "We're men, you and I," he said, stepping close. "And we both know, the only way to fix anything is through science, medication. And that is why you're here."

Lassiter shook his head. "Can't fix anything," he mumbled. "Not anymore."

"Not true," Lobego purred. "We're going to fix you."

_Not broken_, Carlton mouthed, but his headache was back and a terrible heaviness was laying on him. He needed... something.

"What is this awful pain...?" Lobego soothed, dropping to crouch beside Carlton's chair. He brushed the sweat-damp hair from the detective's forehead tenderly. "What is this awful thing inside you? Failure? I've heard stories... how far you've fallen because of some punk off the street, doing your job better than you ever could. You aren't the man you used to be. I remember him. I admired him."

"You can't," Carlton started. He felt sick to his stomach again, couldn't finish the thought aloud, but what he thought he remembered was that just ten minutes ago, he'd feared Lobego had something in store for Victoria. And he didn't remember now the reasoning, but he remembered it was solid. And hadn't Lobego been ranting at him... however many days ago? Why the act- Why? "Why," he breathed, squeezing his eyes shut.

"Shh."

Carlton shook his head, hard. The headache pounded at the insides of his skull, but he didn't care. None of this made sense, he knew that much, and he wasn't about to make a fatal mistake because of some physical discomfort and mental... whatever it was. "Screw. You," he spat.

Brutus' hand was around his throat a moment later, but Carlton didn't panic at the sudden inability to draw breath. He just stared at Lobego over Brutus' knuckles, ignoring the bigger man's face inches from his own reddening one.

"Brutus. Enough." Brutus let him go with a little push and the air rushed into Carlton's chest like his lungs had a mind of their own, heaving and gasping without any sense of how vulgar it all was. "We'll allow the _Detective_ a little time alone with his thoughts."

Great, Carlton thought as the door closed and he was plunged into darkness again. His _thoughts_. Yeah, they were _great_ company. They'd been especially clear lately, even as the rest of his perception had gone a hazy. He didn't feel connected with his actual body, not counting the terrible headache and occasional throb in his shoulder, but he'd take being able to feel the hard chair under him, the bite of the tight duct tape around his wrists, the fiery pull of damaged ligaments he knew he should be feeling in his shoulder, if only his thoughts would do like they'd always done and mind their own damned business.

"What are you doing?"

Carlton lifted his head. The voice on the other side of the door was muffled, but he recognized it instantly. Bile rose in his throat.

_Victoria_.

"Just behave yourself," came Lobego's voice.

"Victoria!" Carlton called. The talking on the other side of the door stopped. Carlton waited for an answer of any sort, but was met with silence. "Victoria!" he called again.

He stared at the door for... he lost track of the time. Maybe half an hour. Then his sluggish brain clicked and he pulled on the tape holding his arms to the chair. Ow. He ignored the dull ache in his shoulder and bent to scrape at it with his teeth. Victoria was in that other room. He'd been right, but he'd been too slow to realise it. He'd been too slow to - what could he even have done? He got himself jumped in a parking garage and had no idea where he was, and the only message he'd managed to get out was on his voicemail which probably wouldn't even get heard until he failed to show up for duty the following Monday - which could have been a week ago for all he knew. But even if it had been heard, the only way to track him was laying under water useless. He couldn't save himself, he had no chance to save her.

Dammit.

He rocked the chair in frustration, trying half-heartedly to jerk his arms free but mostly just wanting to break something. He managed to tip himself over, onto his uninjured side at least, but it was jarring and he already had a headache, that ever-present pressure in his noggin threatening to eventually push his eyeballs out of his skull in an attempt to be relieved. He rested his head on the floor and heaved breaths he told himself weren't sobs. Victoria... Victoria...

"Victoria, Victoria," Lobego said, suddenly at his side and gently pulling the tape from his arms. His injured one flopped across him and he gasped, looking up at Lobego in distress. "Brutus," Lobego called, and it sounded far away, but then he was being dragged upward and positioned back into the chair.

"What have you done with her?" Carlton slurred.

Lobego looked back at Brutus with a sly smile and it made Carlton's blood boil. Well, it should have. He managed to get the energy only to marionette his hands upward, around Lobego's neck, but the guy just laughed and Carlton would have too, if some addled junkie with such a boneless grip had tried to strangle him.

A moment later, it struck him that his hands weren't bound to the chair. Not that it mattered.

"What makes you think we have her?" Lobego murmured, standing and gesturing at Brutus, who appeared with a glass of water that immediately grabbed and held Carlton's attention in a vicegrip. He mumbled something in answer to a question he couldn't remember and stared at the glass. "Thirsty?"

Carlton blinked and tore his gaze away from it.

"Don't feel ashamed. You can't live long without water. Believe that."

_Believe that._ He really should have figured this out right away. "Screw you," he snarled.

Lobego shrugged and flicked his hand and Brutus drained the whole glass in one go. Carlton couldn't help but watch in horror. Wow he was just making good decisions right and left, here. Wait -

"Victoria!" he remembered suddenly. "What are you doing with her?"

Lobego chuckled. "What do you think?"

The possibilities raced across the front of Carlton's brain at a nauseating pace. Twelve years ago, Lobego had terrified Victoria Parker for almost a month before she called the police, and Carlton had taken great pleasure in being part of the team that had taken out the trash only to nearly lose his job after finding out their hard work didn't matter. There'd been an ... _incident_ and only the fact that he was the chief's pet had saved him. The fact was, Lobego was a sick, depraved lunatic that society had slapped on the wrist and allowed to go back to his pretty little life. The horror must have shown on his face, because Lobego grinned.

"You leave her out of this," Carlton growled, lunging.

Lobego stepped back and let Carlton fall onto his face on the floor. "I'm afraid that's not possible now," Lobego chuckled, and then left.

Hours later - _maybe_ - Brutus had brought in a glass of water and Carlton had managed to drink it and even walk around his cell a bit. He was pacing when Brutus opened the door to allow Lobego in, leading Victoria. She wasn't bound, she didn't look roughly-handled. But she didn't look up at him, and she didn't look hopeful.

"Victoria," he said, rushing into hostage-situation mode. He tensed and tried not to make sudden movements, even though that didn't matter - not here, not anymore.

Lobego raised his brows and looked at Brutus. "We'll just leave you two alone."

When they were gone, Victoria sat in the chair. She didn't turn it to face him, merely sat sideways on it, looking ahead and not at him.

Lassiter paced the length of the room at the back wall. He really couldn't stand it when women cried. The waterworks, the running mascara, the incoherent blubbering. But when Victoria cried, she was quiet, and she was refined, and she was regal, and that was why he had fallen in love with her and married her.

"You were crying the first time I saw you," he said softly.

She nodded. Tears traced paths down her cheeks, not in big rolling sops but a stately refreshing of silver over her handsome face. "You were my hero."

"Not anymore, I guess."

"Not anymore," she echoed dully. "We're going to die." He shook his head, but she continued. "Because you ... aren't good enough."

He stared at her. "Victoria..."

She looked at him. "You never were. Good enough."

"You don't mean that."

She didn't answer him.

"Victoria, I- Look, we can figure this out. We can..." He trailed off when she looked away again, at a loss. He'd already tried and failed to escape, and he was unsteadier now, and couldn't protect someone else, and - "We can figure it out," he finished lamely, slumping against the wall and sliding down it to sit on his ankles. Like everything else in the room, the edges of her flickered with a pinky gold aura. On another night, he'd have said she was beautiful.

"All right," Lobego said, opening the door again. Didn't want to give them too much time to conspire, Carlton thought. In his imagination, he and Victoria fought side by side to lay waste to the bad guys before skipping merrily on to the marriage they should have had the first time around, but that image was shattered by the real life version. Victoria sat in the chair dejected and hopeless, not even bothering to wipe away the tears.

This didn't have a good ending.

"Come on," Lobego said, gesturing widely. "Time to separate the lovebirds."

"No," Carlton said. Victoria was already standing, looking between him and Lobego. Carlton stepped forward, between them, hands out. "You're not going to lay a finger on her or I swear to God I'll-"

"What?" Lobego gave him a gentle push that made his head spin. "Vomit on me?"

"Leave him alone," Victoria said, stepping up. Being the hero Carlton wasn't able to be any more. "Leave him alone. I'll go with you."

"No!" He turned to her, his finger in her face in order. "No. You are not going anywhere with that man," he continued, pointing at Lobego. "He is a sick, depraved asshole who is _done_ terrifying helpless women-"

"Helpless?" she said softly. He froze. "I'm not the helpless one." She swept from his side and into Brutus' wake as he left the room.

Lobego grinned and turned to go as well, holding up Carlton's gun in evidence of his intentions. Carlton's eyes went wide and he went after the doctor. "No. No no you leave her out of this, you leave her alone. Listen to me you-" He pounded his fists on the closed door, calling incoherently for Victoria, for Lobego, to God, to Spencer for cripes' sake.

The shot startled him. Even though he'd known it was coming. He'd been railing at the door, screaming until he was hoarse, pounding until his hands were raw and swollen. She pleaded, for his life, for hers. And then there was a shot, and it startled him into silence.

Oh God.

A moment later, the door opened. The _other_ bastard pulled him up by his shirt collar and pushed him into the other room. She was sprawled indecently where she'd fallen, the pool of blood rich and warm and smelling too much like the thousands of crime scenes which should have inured him to the sense of hot sick panic.

Carlton fell to his knees at the edge of it, but he couldn't bring himself to breech the perimeter - the steadily encroaching edge of the - but the giddy part of his brain reasoned that it was only habit, do not disturb the crime scene.

Screw the crime scene. He threw himself onto her body, shaking her shoulders. There was life in her yet, and she croaked something he couldn't understand. Behind them, the bastards talked quietly, derision in their voices but he couldn't understand them either. He couldn't understand anything. Another sick flashing moment later, she was gone. Her hand had left a sticky trail on his cheek and then flopped onto her chest, still.

"Couldn't save her." The voice wasn't his, but it might as well have been. "It's over. Isn't it?"

Carlton nodded mutely.

The gun slid toward him and the door closed. _ It's over. _ He reached for the gun.


	6. Chapter 6: Only An Idiot

"We were _supposed_ to stay with the helicopter, Shawn!" Gus hissed, out of breath.

Shawn slid to a stop and turned, prancing on the spot with nervous energy. "Come on dude, how long have we been doing this? Lassie is out there somewhere and as much as I love Jules, she might miss something. We gotta go!"

Gus nodded and tried to catch his breath as he jogged to catch up to Shawn. "I still don't get how you know he's here," he panted.

"Are you kidding me? I thought I explained it all in the helicopter!"

"That was your explanation? I thought you were just rambling on about the thematic differences between Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles!"

"That was a metaphor!"

"A metaphor for how you knew where to find Lassiter?"

"Okay. Fine. Maybe it was a little weak. Maybe it wasn't completely accurate. Maybe I don't _even_ know what a metaphor _is_. The point is, he's here." Shawn stopped short as they drew up some meters behind the straggling black clad search party and ducked behind a bush. "Jules was looking closer to home because she thought Lassie was tricking us into looking far away. She was right, only it wasn't Lassie who was tricking us. The string of numbers and letters Lassie put in his message - it was a time and a date - and something else." He pulled a fare schedule out of his pocket and tilted it so Gus could read it in the moonlight. "It's a ferry designation."

"MDR-THB. The Marina Del Ray to Two Harbors route," Gus picked out. He looked around. "And no wonder. This island is practically deserted."

"This side of the harbor moreso than the other side," Shawn agreed. "Oh oh, they're moving out again." He loped along behind the large group of police. "Hang on..." He slowed; Gus jogged right past him, then jogged backward.

"Shawn. I thought we had to go save Lassiter," Gus said.

"Heck yeah we do," Shawn said, distracted.

"So? Didn't Juliet's file say Lobego had a cabin at the end of this road?"

"Yeah, yeah." Shawn waved him off, thinking.

_"No. The chief said he emailed her three weeks ago. The report from the neighborhood watch was only submitted a week and a half ago. Something's up-" He paused as the call connected. But it didn't ring. Just went straight to voicemail._

_Juliet frowned and beelined for her desk to dial Lassie's number from her phone. The voicemail picked up immediately._

"Dude, when a phone goes right to voicemail-"

"It means the phone's off," Gus realized, following Shawn's gaze to the moon-illuminated guardrail of a tiny bridge just off the main road. "Or maybe-"

"It got tossed into the river after Lassie changed his message. Come on dude."

"This isn't a river," Gus accused when they got to the bridge. "It's barely a crick."

"A creek?"

"A creek is bigger than a crick."

"No, a creek is bigger than a brook."

"That's silly-talk," Gus said. "A brook is bigger than a creek, which is bigger than a crick."

"Dude, there's no such thing as a crick- you know what, I can't do this with you right now. Come on." He skittered down the bank.

"What are you looking for?"

"This," Shawn said, plucking a taco wrapper from the rocks on the bank. "Lassie's favourite taco place. We're on the right track."

"You know Lassiter's favourite taco place?"

"Easier to keep track of him that way," Shawn jibed back, searching the opposite bank. It was hard to tell with just the moonlight, but he could definitely see evidence of a fight. Tracks on either side of the bridge on the opposite bank, deep gouges in the mud where one man had fought two others before... being dragged away. Shawn's heart sank into his stomach. But if Lobego wanted to make it look like a suicide, he'd have kept Lassie alive. "Come on, Gus," he said, hopping over the crick and hustling up the other bank.

"Oh my gosh," Gus hissed once they were on level ground again. He bent to retrieve something from the ground, and when he held it up in the moonlight, it glinted.

A syringe.

"What is that?" Shawn asked.

"Could be anything," Gus said, trying to make out a label written in chicken scratch on medical tape along the side. "I thought you said Lobego wanted Lassiter to go into withdrawal."

"I did, and I still think so. But I think... Lassie fought it. I was right, wasn't I? Lassie doesn't _do_ emotional. I bet he just sat around thinking it was silly to be depressed when he was supposed to be escaping, and it threw a wrench into Lobego's plan. This-" He spread his arms out to indicate the whole bridge area. "This was an escape attempt."

"Oh my gosh," Gus said again. "I think I see the word 'mystic.'"

"So?"

"_So_, blue mystic - otherwise known as 2-CT-7, is highly illegal."

"How can something be _highly_ illegal? It's illegal or it isn't."

Gus raised a brow. "It causes hallucinations and who knows what this psycho shrink mighta mixed it up with. We gotta find Lassiter."

They followed the path, what path there was, into a woods and then into a meadow. Where there stood a cabin.

Shawn snuck up to it in the moonlight, fully illuminated, but he got points for _trying _to sneak. And no one shot him, so there was that. He crouched under a window and craned his neck to look in. Lassie was alone. Excellent.

"Call Jules," Shawn hissed.

Gus looked at his phone. "No signal."

"There's a signal on the main road. Go call her there. Hurry!"

"Gladly," Gus said, looking around at the shadowy forest doubtfully.

"Scaredy cat. Lassie!" Shawn threw the door open, and in the pool of moonlight cast by it knelt the lanky detective himself, cradling his trusty gun.

"Great, you're good. Let's go," Shawn said in a rush.

"Go?" Lassie said softly, hollowly. Like he wasn't really there.

"Yeah, go. As in the 1999 movie starring Katie Holmes with decent hair and more importantly, a verb which means get the hell out of here before the bad guys come back."

Lassie looked up. He looked like death warmed over, sickly pale and shaking, and he was crying. Which was a bad sign. Shawn cursed his own jinxing -_ Can you just imagine him sitting around somewhere on his vacation having a good cry? Not possible._

"Come on buddy," Shawn said, taking a step into the cabin's front room.

"No," Lassie said sharply. He blinked hard and lifted his gun.

Shawn raised his brows. "Okay, Lassie-pants," he said cautiously, hands up. "It's me, Shawn. Shawny. Spencer? I know what's going on here. And everything's gonna be okay. Gus is calling Jules right this very moment."

"I thought you loved me..." Lassie mumbled.

"Uh-"

"I thought - you said you always would. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Shawn cleared his throat. "Uh, Lassafrass-" But whatever he was planning to follow it up with - something he hadn't quite worked out ahead of time anyway - was cut off by the arm across his throat, dragging him out of the cabin doorway and into the night.

He fought. _Hard_. Because whoever was trying to choke the life out of him was probably the same guy who'd drugged Lassie for over a month and set up an elaborate kidnapping, and if Shawn had anything to say about it, he was going to get at _least_ a stern talking-to. But the guy was like a million pounds of muscle and about ten feet tall and all Shawn could do was drag his feet in the grass as he was pulled into the trees just to the side of the cabin where they waited, watching, listening.

A moment later, Lassie's tall, ungainly form lurched into silhouette at the entrance of the cabin, gun gleaming in one hand while the other arm hung limp at his side.

"He's here, isn't he."

The voice managed to be quiet but carry across the little meadow well. He didn't know where the other speaker was hiding, but it was familiar and Shawn revised his theory. The guy holding him was just the muscle; the mastermind was the speaker, Kurt Lobego.

"Spencer." Lassie groaned out the word like he was saying "kill me now."

"Yes. The brilliant detective. How many years has he been on the force?"

Lassie didn't have to answer.

"How many cases has he solved while you were still getting the facts straight? How many times has he beat you, Officer Lassiter?"

Lassie flinched. "_Detective_," he mumbled, but there was no conviction to it.

"Detective? Do you know how elaborate this set up was? You still have no idea where you are, and he managed to track you down without the benefit of even knowing who I am. Come on, _Detective_," Lobego said. "You know who the better man is."

Lassie mumbled to himself again. Shawn couldn't make out the words, but if there was a part of Lassie that had any pride left, any fight in it at all, that part was losing the argument.

Lassie dropped to his knees and lifted the gun, turning it toward himself like he was looking at it, just looking, but it was too close for comfort for Shawn.

"Lassie, stop!" he yelled from cover, then yelped as the brute squad captain thumped him on the back. "Lassie -"

"He's brilliant," Lassiter whispered. "I can't compete."

"That's right."

"No it isn't! Lassie, this isn't real! Whatever you're feeling, it's just the drugs!" Shawn called, fighting to get out of the muscle's hold. Lassiter was shaking his head. Logic wasn't going to work. It was time to get personal. "Lassie, you're better than this, better than him. Better - better than me! If it were up to me, I'd be dead a hundred times over by now! Don't let him _trick_ you!" The muscle kneed him in the stomach.

"You're just the mechanism," Lobego translated. "You're the dog who bites on command. You've got a steady aim and no higher ambition than to pull the trigger when told. So save us all the drama and do it now. Do it now."

"Jules would be _dead_," Shawn countered, wheezing. "She'd be dead. It's your training, and your loyalty, your dedication. Look, we all have strengths. I could be using my gifts to do anything, but I use them to help _you_ because you're _worth_ it, because you -" He almost choked on the words, but they needed to be said. "You inspire me! Do you think these cases stick because of me? They stick because _you_ know how to make them work."

"But I'm a detective that doesn't... _detect_," Lassie said dazedly. He sounded close to breaking up. "I can't be anything else."

Shawn sucked in a breath as the muzzle went to Lassie's cheekbone and settled there. "You detect! You _totally_ detect. You detect your _ass_ off. Hey guess how we found you. That trick with the phone message and your whole obsessive perp board and twelve year old case files that you _still_ check on every month. You are a man obsessed! Everything you've ever gotten, you've _fought_ for."

"Yeah..." slurred Lassie. It didn't have quite the rallying effect Shawn had hoped for. "Nothing comes easy."

"Not to you," Lobego nudged from cover. Shawn still couldn't pinpoint it in the hollow echo of the dew-damped meadow. "But to him-"

"Everything is so easy."

Shawn blew out a breath. "Yeah, okay! Sue me! Look, I can't help that. But that's my gift and guess what! As soon as something gets hard, I quit. You don't quit, you can't, _because _nothing is easy! You stick with it, and you never give up! That's your gift."

Lassiter paused. "My gift."

"Yes!" Shawn said, sensing a break in the wall. He tried again to get away from the muscle, but didn't succeed, and this time felt the press of a gun dig into his neck. "Lassie," he choked.

The moment lasted forever. Lassie seemed to turn over their conversation for possible truth, tilting his head to look at it sideways. He stayed where he was though, kneeling on the ground and pointing his own gun at himself like he'd forgotten it was there. Then - and Shawn could have sworn he _saw_ the reassuring flash of steel blue as Lassiter looked up and zeroed in on exactly where Shawn was. in an instant, he had taken aim and fired, taking out Shawn's captor before anyone had realised what was happening.

Shawn's whoop of glee was shortlived. Lassiter was still on his knees, hands up, gun safely swinging by the trigger guard in a show of surrender. Lobego stood behind him, pressing a gun into the hollow of Lassie's collarbone, too close to the jugular. Dammit, dammit.

Shawn stepped forward, stalling for time. "Lobego, it's over. The cops are on their way. They'll be here any minute."

"It's not over."

"Oh yeah it is. The whole department knows where we are. There's no way you're escaping the island before they find you. You kidnapped the wrong Head Detective. People _love_ this guy down there, God knows why."

"God knows why," Lassiter repeated, off into his own world again.

Shawn flinched inwardly. Hadn't he just spent the last ten minutes convincing him not to kill himself? "We know everything, Lobego." Shawn took another step forward. "Even if your plan worked now, you have to know there's no way it'd be ruled a suicide. We know about the scotch, how you drugged him to make it look like he was on medication for depression, prescribed by you under your innocent partner in practice's name. That's right. We know about the sham psychologist office-"

"Psychiatrist," Lobego and Lassie answered in unison. Lassie was still out of it. It was unsettling, watching him echo Lobego - proof of just how deeply into Lassie's head Lobego had clawed.

"Whatever," Shawn snapped. "You hoped taking him off cold turkey would plunge him into a deep enough depression that he'd do it himself and you could keep your hands clean, but he didn't break, did he? You had to resort to something else. Something stronger. But the jig is up. We know about the fake email, the fake vacation. We know he didn't stalk Missus Lassiter."

Lassie gasped at the mention of Victoria, and his eyes filled again. But he didn't say anything or try to get away from Lobego, just dropped his hands to the ground in defeat. _Come on Gus, tell me you got through to Jules._

"You knew she'd complain to her neighborhood watch after seeing Brutus over there around her house-"

"How'd you know my name?" came a voice from the woods.

"Brutus? Really? I was just - anyway. You knew that Lassie would come check it out if he saw a watch report from Victoria's neighborhood with the word stalker in it, so you called in the first one and let the hyper-alert neighborhood watch guy call in the second one, when he could identify Lassie's car patrolling the area. You _knew_ he was going to be away, because you've been watching him for months, waiting for the right moment to strike. The transaction date on his hotel reservation was the same date of his - or should I say _your_ - email to the chief asking for time off, and _furthermore_-"

"FREEZE! SBPD! Drop it! I want your hands where I can see them!"

Shawn looked over. "Dude. Seriously? Right in the middle of my - okay. Fine."

Jules strode forward, bathed in the sudden light of a million cops on a manhunt. Her gun was straight out in front of her, trained on Lobego.

"You okay," Gus whispered, jogging up behind Shawn to watch. "What happened? What's wrong with Lassiter? He's just staring-"

"Shh."

"I said drop it!" Juliet's voice was hoarse, harsh, edging on a scream.

Lobego looked at her, at the guns poking out of the darkness behind her, at the entire department who'd come to find their Head Detective and who were probably pissed as hell. Shawn saw it in his posture, in his expression, that he was going to give up, but not the way Jules needed him to. He didn't have anything left to live for, except to see Lassie dead-

A single shot rang out, then a flurry of movement. Shawn looked at Jules, but she was staring at Lassie - or rather, Lobego, rolling around on the ground clutching his foot. And then time sped back up to normal. Shawn rushed in ahead of the ferocious officers of the SBPD and skidded to a stop on his knees in front of Lassie. Lassiter looked at him, blinking hard. He swiped at his eyes and blinked again, and then he threw his arms around the psychic, sobbing into his neck.

Shawn froze, stunned. At a loss, he patted the detective awkwardly on the back while Lassie murmured, "you're alive, you're alive." Jules knelt behind him to take the gun from Lassie's hand. She patted Shawn on the shoulder and nodded encouragingly.

"Yeah, I'm alive," Shawn reassured. "You got him. It's cool, big guy. Everything's fine."

"You're alive. You're alive. Oh God, Victoria, you're alive..."

And then Lassie was dead weight in Shawn's arms.

* * *

"Victoria?" Lassie's voice was little more than a groan, but Shawn had been listening hard even while he flirted with the nurses.

"Hey buddy," he said loudly.

Lassie blinked slowly around, then settled on the ceiling. "I hugged you."

"Yessir you did," Shawn said.

"I thought you were her... But that wasn't real."

"Nope, it wasn't."

"She's gone."

"Yeah..." Shawn said. "Sorry."

"Has anyone told her - I should be the one to tell him, if no one has yet. How long have I been-" He stopped, eyes welling. Then he rallied. "I should be the one to tell her father."

Shawn quirked a brow. "I think he knows," he said. "Since he drove her there."

Lassie stared at him for a long moment. "Drove her..." He frowned hard. "What?"

"To her aunt's house? In Bakersfield?"

"No she's - she's dead. Victoria's - dead. Lobego got her, he got her and shot her - her blood-"

The nurse butted in to check on her patient. Lassie looked at his hands like he was afraid of them, and Shawn sucked in a breath as realizaton clicked into place. They'd found a _buttload_ of blue mystic in Lassie's system.

"I need you to calm down, Mr. Lassiter-"

"Detective," Shawn corrected. "She's not dead, Lassie-pants. She's alive. She's staying with her aunt. We called to check in on her, and she's fine. She's fine."

"She's fine," Lassie repeated dully. He looked back up at Shawn. "And you're fine?"

Shawn grinned. "I'm fine. Everyone's fine. Except Brutus. And Lobego."

Lassiter closed his eyes. "I shot him in the foot." Like he was reciting from a page.

"_Yeah_ you did!"

"His memory will be a little hazy for a day or two," said the doctor from the doorway. She swung into the room with a smile, followed by the nurse who'd summoned her. "But it'll come back. The drug you were exposed to is supposed to have a very clarifying effect." She turned to Shawn. "The hallucinatory effect should be gone by now, and soon he'll be able to remember which events were real and which weren't, but he'll be more emotional than usual until it's been worked out of his system."

"In other words, now is the best time to ask him embarrassing questions," Shawn guessed gleefully.

"He's in a vulnerable state," she confirmed with a sly grin. "I'll be back to check on you in a bit."

Shawn settled into a chair at Lassie's bedside, intent on taking full advantage of the fifteen minutes he had before Jules came back in for her turn.

**Two days later**

"Hey, you're awake."

"Of course I'm awake," Carlton grumped, scribbling in a file folder. "It's daytime."

O'Hara twisted her mouth up. "Who gave you that? You're supposed to be resting. You're in the _hospital_."

"Crime waits for no man, O'Hara."

"I'm gonna kill Buzz," she grumbled jokingly. "Listen. Chief says you can come back whenever you like, but it's desk duty for at least a week."

"A week?" he whined. "That's the most ridiculous - what am I supposed to do for a week?"

"Take it off," she suggested. "Take two. It's recommended. An actual vacation. Go fishing? For real this time."

"I'm never taking a vacation again."

Juliet nodded and sat. "So... how do you feel?" she tested.

"I feel..." he began thoughtfully. Then he leveled his glare on her and said, "like I wish people would stop asking me that. I'm _fine_."

"You're fine? Really. Cuz I'm not."

Carlton frowned. "O'Hara..."

"I'm really not." She shook her head at him and put her hand over his. "Shawn told you what happened? What we thought you were - I thought-"

Carlton blew out a breath and tried not to look embarrassed or annoyed. Spencer had spilled the story almost as soon as he'd opened his eyes; before he could even figure out where he was or why his head felt like a huge cotton swab, Spencer had been there to give him all the gory details and ask all the mortifying questions.

"O'Hara," he said, unsure how he was supposed to comfort her. _He_ was the one in the hospital for cripes' sake.

"I thought you were dead," she interrupted. "I thought you were - ready to give up. And I yelled at Shawn for not caring and I snapped at Buzz and I made the chief take over all my other duties just to find you because I thought - I - I was lost. In not knowing, in 'what if' and I'm not okay. Because now I just keep thinking we - we came so close to-"

"O'Hara. It's okay." He turned his hand under hers over to entwine their fingers. It was a bit overly intimate, but he figured he'd take it for the team. "Look. Now we're even."

"Even?"

"For the last month and a half. For what if. Came so close."

He watched the realization dawn on her. It was embarrassing. But maybe it was an aftereffect of the - whatever the doctor had said. He'd still been "tripping" when he'd been told, but he remembered feeling everything click into place at the time. The clarity of thought, even though it'd pulled him down into deep, if artificial, despair, had forced him to realize some things for himself.

Mercifully, O'Hara just nodded and the topic was dropped. Mutual affection and concern over each other's survival didn't have to mean the complete breakdown of professionalism, after all. Carlton blew out a breath in relief.

"So I'm supposed to debrief you," she said.

Carlton nodded. "I don't remember a whole lot." She frowned at him, so he corrected hastily: "I mean, I don't have a good sense of the time. I remember what happened, but not how much time passed. And... I can work out what was real and what was... you know."

O'Hara smiled gently at him; it was infuriating.

"Just give her time," she said. "She's really rattled, and she almost lost you."

"She thought I- Can we not talk about this?"

"Okay," O'Hara said quickly, backing off. "No problem."

Carlton frowned. "You don't have to treat me like I'm breakable. Dammit O'Hara-"

"I'm _sorry_. I don't want to make this harder on you. Just being honest. If you don't want to talk about something, I'm not gonna talk about it, okay? That's all."

Carlton closed his eyes and breathed deep. "Okay. Fine. I left the station at around 7:30." He looked up for confirmation of his memory, breathing a sigh of relief when she nodded, scribbling it down. "I arrived at the hotel - uh, Fairfield Inn - at around 9:00..."

* * *

"Back to his old self," Shawn said, standing outside Lassie's hospital room.

"Think so?" Victoria said from behind him.

Shawn turned to face her. "Certainly sounds like it." He paused. "You should go in."

"I can't. How could I face him? How could I have thought he'd - after the way we met..."

Shawn smiled. "Come on. We all know Lassie- ter, _Detective _Lassiter isn't ya know, exactly-"

"Sane?" Gus offered, coming up to them with three cups of coffee. Shawn and Victoria each took one.

"I wasn't going to say 'sane'," Shawn said, elbowing Gus. "I was going to say... short. He's not exactly short. What? He isn't!"

Victoria and Gus looked at each other, then back into Lassiter's room, where he lay, awake and whole and ready to tear someone a new butthole. Victoria smiled. "That's part of what I loved - love about him. He's reliable. Dependable. Dedicated to - well, to whatever he wants to be dedicated to. When it's you, you're the only thing that matters. But what does it say about how he feels about me? That he would dream up this whole scenario-"

"Detective Lassiter wasn't in his right mind," Gus interrupted. "2-CT-7 is a powerful hallucinogenic drug, laced with who knows what else."

"What Gus is saying is that Lassie saw you being murdered because - because of guilt, because you're important to him, because he was crazy depressed and thinking only about the stuff he fears most. Not being able to save the people he cares about."

Ex-Missus Lassiter watched through the window. After a moment, Lassie looked away from Jules in irritation, only to catch all three of them watching him. He and Victoria locked eyes for a moment, but Victoria cleared her throat and looked away, busying herself with her bag before saying, "Tell him I- I have to go."

Shawn watched her leave. "Well I get why they got married now," he said. "Not exactly forthcoming with the emotional attachment, is she?"

"You're one to talk, Shawn," Gus said, gingerly sipping his coffee.

"Dude, _I_ am a kind and loving soul."

**Two Weeks Later**

Carlton skipped up the steps into the lobby of the station. His stomach rolled at the thought of facing the people who'd had to come _rescue_ him, but O'Hara had assured him that the only people who knew how close he'd come to offing himself were herself and the chief, and of course Spencer. The whole thing was still embarrassing, and he was hoping to steamroll right over it by ignoring the whole thing.

Unfortunately, he hadn't quite gotten around to giving Spencer the memo. The _fake_ psychic's irritating bellow echoed across the room from where he sat _on_ Carlton's desk, telling a story about - oh, God, he heard his name.

"I can see it all clearly!" Spencer claimed, fingertips to his temple like he was having a vision. "He runs this way and that, evading his kidnappers even through the haze of delirium! He's almost free, he's hiding, but they find him. Oh God! He knows he's going to lose the fight - he's already injured and weak, so he drops this-" Spencer brandished the taco wrapper that Carlton had dropped in the river. "To lead me right to him! And then he fights like a man possessed! But they get him, and they keep him, but our Head Detective is smart, oh yes!"

The younger officers sitting around Shawn were wide-eyed as they listened. Officers Carlton hadn't bothered learning the names of. Older officers stood around with coffee, trying not to look like they were listening. Even O'Hara sat at her desk, transfixed by Spencer's account. Carlton stepped up behind her and lightly touched her on the shoulder to let her know he was there without causing a scene. She jumped and looked up, then shrugged herself out of responsibility for the dramatic retelling and looked back at Spencer.

"He keeps them at bay, no matter what they try, staying alive, staying alert, because he knows we're out there looking, using the clues he's left for us!" Spencer hopped off the desk, hands in front of him to illustrate. "They lead me to him, vision after vision, to a cabin where he's been held for days, without food, without water. And just as we're about to make our escape, I'm taken hostage! Like - _this!" _He grabbed Guster from behind, by the throat, and the sight of it brought back gut-roiling memories. "But the bedraggled-"

"Bedraggled?" Guster hissed.

"Yes. I do know some words," Spencer hissed back. Carlton rolled his eyes. "The bedraggled detective, through the dark, through the dizzyness of hunger and ouchiness, raises his gun and takes aim! He fires! I'm free!" He pushed Guster away with a flourish. "But Lassie's stuck! And you all know what happened next."

A younger officer raised his hand. Spencer stopped short, raising a brow. "Uh... yes?"

"Detective Lassiter shot him in the foot!"

Spencer rolled his eyes. Carlton snickered. "Yes. Yes he did." But Carlton's snicker had snagged the attention from the storytelling jackass and suddenly there were a million eyes on him.

"All right," he grouched, but he could feel a smile threatening. He tamped it down. "Is this or is this not a police station? Everyone back to work!" He cut through the crowd to get to his desk.

"Welcome back, Lassie pants!"

"Not now, Spencer. I sort of have a lot of work to catch up on."

"I just wanted to say thanks."

Carlton turned to Spencer, but the fake psychic's energy was more contagious than usual, and Carlton couldn't keep up the grouchiness. His shoulders slumped. "Look, that story-"

"I know the taco wrapper thing was an accident," Spencer interrupted. "But I like to think of the truth as whatever sounds better."

Carlton scowled. "Spencer-"

"But the rest of my story? Totally true." He turned to survey the rest of the station, bustling around on their Head Detective's orders. "And as far as they'll ever know? That's the whole thing."

Carlton tilted his head doubtfully. "You're saying you're not- planning to..."

Spencer grinned. "I'd _love_ to. But I won't." He shrugged. "Anyway, I've told that story at least seventeen times. Can't change it now. Who'd believe me?"

"Only an idiot would believe anything you say, Shawn." Carlton smiled grimly.

"Yeah. Thank God you're an idiot," Spencer quipped, then grinned like a mischievous little elf and bolted.

But Carlton wasn't giving chase. He sat at his familiar desk, a desk like home, and watched the psychic skip through the lobby. Yeah, he agreed. Thank God.


	7. Ch 6: Only An Idiot, Shassie Version

"We were _supposed_ to stay with the helicopter, Shawn!" Gus hissed, out of breath.

Shawn slid to a stop and turned, prancing on the spot with nervous energy. "Come on dude, how long have we been doing this? Lassie is out there somewhere and as much as I love Jules, she might miss something. We gotta go!"

Gus nodded and tried to catch his breath as he jogged to catch up to Shawn. "I still don't get how you know he's here," he panted.

"Are you kidding me? I thought I explained it all in the helicopter!"

"That was your explanation? I thought you were just rambling on about the thematic differences between Pretty in Pink and Sixteen Candles!"

"That was a metaphor!"

"A metaphor for how you knew where to find Lassiter?"

"Okay. Fine. Maybe it was a little weak. Maybe it wasn't completely accurate. Maybe I don't _even_ know what a metaphor _is_. The point is, he's here." Shawn stopped short as they drew up some meters behind the straggling black clad search party and ducked behind a bush. "Jules was looking closer to home because she thought Lassie was tricking us into looking far away. She was right, only it wasn't Lassie who was tricking us. The string of numbers and letters Lassie put in his message - it was a time and a date - and something else." He pulled a fare schedule out of his pocket and tilted it so Gus could read it in the moonlight. "It's a ferry designation."

"MDR-THB. The Marina Del Ray to Two Harbors route," Gus picked out. He looked around. "And no wonder. This island is practically deserted."

"This side of the harbor moreso than the other side," Shawn agreed. "Oh oh, they're moving out again." He loped along behind the large group of police. "Hang on..." He slowed; Gus jogged right past him, then jogged backward.

"Shawn. I thought we had to go save Lassiter," Gus said.

"Heck yeah we do," Shawn said, distracted.

"So? Didn't Juliet's file say Lobego had a cabin at the end of this road?"

"Yeah, yeah." Shawn waved him off, thinking.

_"No. The chief said he emailed her three weeks ago. The report from the neighborhood watch was only submitted a week and a half ago. Something's up-" He paused as the call connected. But it didn't ring. Just went straight to voicemail._

_Juliet frowned and beelined for her desk to dial Lassie's number from her phone. The voicemail picked up immediately._

"Dude, when a phone goes right to voicemail-"

"It means the phone's off," Gus realized, following Shawn's gaze to the moon-illuminated guardrail of a tiny bridge just off the main road. "Or maybe-"

"It got tossed into the river after Lassie changed his message. Come on dude."

"This isn't a river," Gus accused when they got to the bridge. "It's barely a crick."

"A creek?"

"A creek is bigger than a crick."

"No, a creek is bigger than a brook."

"That's silly-talk," Gus said. "A brook is bigger than a creek, which is bigger than a crick."

"Dude, there's no such thing as a crick- you know what, I can't do this with you right now. Come on." He skittered down the bank.

"What are you looking for?"

"This," Shawn said, plucking a taco wrapper from the rocks on the bank. "Lassie's favourite taco place. We're on the right track."

"You know Lassiter's favourite taco place?"

"Easier to keep track of him that way," Shawn jibed back, searching the opposite bank. It was hard to tell with just the moonlight, but he could definitely see evidence of a fight. Tracks on either side of the bridge on the opposite bank, deep gouges in the mud where one man had fought two others before... being dragged away. Shawn's heart sank into his stomach. But if Lobego wanted to make it look like a suicide, he'd have kept Lassie alive. "Come on, Gus," he said, hopping over the crick and hustling up the other bank.

"Oh my gosh," Gus hissed once they were on level ground again. He bent to retrieve something from the ground, and when he held it up in the moonlight, it glinted.

A syringe.

"What is that?" Shawn asked.

"Could be anything," Gus said, trying to make out a label written in chicken scratch on medical tape along the side. "I thought you said Lobego wanted Lassiter to go into withdrawal."

"I did, and I still think so. But I think... Lassie fought it. I was right, wasn't I? Lassie doesn't _do_ emotional. I bet he just sat around thinking it was silly to be depressed when he was supposed to be escaping, and it threw a wrench into Lobego's plan. This-" He spread his arms out to indicate the whole bridge area. "This was an escape attempt."

"Oh my gosh," Gus said again. "I think I see the word 'mystic.'"

"So?"

"_So_, blue mystic - otherwise known as 2-CT-7, is highly illegal."

"How can something be _highly_ illegal? It's illegal or it isn't."

Gus raised a brow. "It causes hallucinations and who knows what this psycho shrink mighta mixed it up with. We gotta find Lassiter."

They followed the path, what path there was, into a woods and then into a meadow. Where there stood a cabin.

Shawn snuck up to it in the moonlight, fully illuminated, but he got points for _trying _to sneak. And no one shot him, so there was that. He crouched under a window and craned his neck to look in. Lassie was alone. Excellent.

"Call Jules," Shawn hissed.

Gus looked at his phone. "No signal."

"You had a signal on the main road. Go call her there. Hurry!"

"Gladly," Gus said, looking around at the shadowy forest doubtfully.

"Scaredy cat. Lassie!" Shawn threw the door open, and in the pool of moonlight cast by it knelt the lanky detective himself, cradling his trusty gun.

"Great, you're good. Let's go," Shawn said in a rush.

"Go?" Lassie said softly, hollowly. Like he wasn't really there.

"Yeah, go. As in the 1999 movie starring Katie Holmes and more importantly, a verb which means get the hell out of here before the bad guys come back."

Lassie looked up. He looked like death warmed over, sickly pale and shaking, and he was crying. Which was a bad sign. Shawn cursed his own jinxing -_ Can you just imagine him sitting around somewhere on his vacation having a good cry? Not possible._

"Come on buddy," Shawn said, taking a step into the cabin's front room.

"No," Lassie said sharply. He blinked hard and lifted his gun.

Shawn raised his brows. "Okay, Lassie-pants," he said cautiously, hands up. "It's me, Shawn. Shawny. Uhh Spencer? I know what's going on here. And everything's gonna be okay. Gus is calling Jules right this very moment."

"I thought you loved me..." Lassie mumbled.

"Uh-"

"I thought - you said you always would. I'm sorry. I'm sorry."

Shawn cleared his throat. "Uh, Lassafrass-" But whatever he was planning to follow it up with - something he hadn't quite worked out ahead of time anyway - was cut off by the arm across his throat, dragging him out of the cabin doorway and into the night.

He fought. _Hard_. Because whoever was trying to choke the life out of him was probably the same guy who'd drugged Lassie for over a month and set up an elaborate kidnapping, and if Shawn had anything to say about it, he was going to get at _least_ a stern talking-to. But the guy was like a million pounds of muscle and about ten feet tall and all Shawn could do was drag his feet in the grass as he was pulled into the trees just to the side of the cabin where they waited, watching, listening.

A moment later, Lassie's tall, ungainly form lurched into silhouette at the entrance of the cabin, gun gleaming in one hand while the other arm hung limp at his side.

"He's here, isn't he."

The voice managed to be quiet but carry across the little meadow well. He didn't know where the other speaker was hiding, but it was familiar and Shawn revised his theory. The guy holding him was just the muscle; the mastermind was the speaker, Kurt Lobego.

"Spencer." Lassie groaned out the word like he was saying "kill me now."

"Yes. The brilliant detective. How many years has he been on the force?"

Lassie didn't have to answer.

"How many cases has he solved while you were still getting the facts straight? How many times has he beat you, Officer Lassiter?"

Lassie flinched. "_Detective_," he mumbled, but there was no conviction to it.

"Detective? Do you know how elaborate this set up was? You still have no idea where you are, and he managed to track you down without the benefit of even knowing who I am. Come on, _Detective_," Lobego said. "You know who the better man is."

Lassie mumbled to himself again. Shawn couldn't make out the words, but if there was a part of Lassie that had any pride left, any fight in it at all, that part was losing the argument.

Lassie dropped to his knees and lifted the gun, turning it toward himself like he was looking at it, just looking, but it was too close for comfort for Shawn.

"Lassie, stop!" he yelled from cover, then yelped as the brute squad captain thumped him on the back. "Lassie -"

"He's brilliant," Lassiter whispered. "I can't compete."

"That's right."

"No it isn't! Lassie, this isn't real! Whatever you're feeling, it's just the drugs!" Shawn called, fighting to get out of the muscle's hold. Lassiter was shaking his head. Logic wasn't going to work. It was time to get personal. "Lassie, you're better than this, better than him. Better - better than me! If it were up to me, I'd be dead a hundred times over by now! Don't let him _trick_ you!" The muscle kneed him in the stomach.

"You're just the mechanism," Lobego translated. "You're the dog who bites on command. You've got a steady aim and no higher ambition than to pull the trigger when told. So save us all the drama and do it now. Do it now."

"Jules would be _dead_," Shawn countered, wheezing. "She'd be dead. It's your training, and your loyalty, your dedication. Look, we all have strengths. I could be using my gifts to do anything, but I use them to help _you_ because you're _worth_ it, because you -" He almost choked on the words, but they needed to be said. "You inspire me! Do you think these cases stick because of me? They stick because _you_ know how to make them work."

"But I'm a detective that doesn't... _detect_," Lassie said dazedly. He sounded close to breaking up. "I can't be anything else."

Shawn sucked in a breath as the muzzle went to Lassie's cheekbone and settled there. "You detect! You _totally_ detect. You detect your _ass_ off. Hey guess how we found you. That trick with the phone message and your whole obsessive perp board and twelve year old case files that you _still_ check on every month. You are a man obsessed! Everything you've ever gotten, you've _fought_ for."

"Yeah..." slurred Lassie. It didn't have quite the rallying effect Shawn had hoped for. "Nothing comes easy."

"Not to you," Lobego nudged from cover. Shawn still couldn't pinpoint it in the hollow echo of the dew-damped meadow. "But to him-"

"Everything is so easy."

Shawn blew out a breath. "Yeah, okay! Sue me! Look, I can't help that. But that's my gift and guess what! As soon as something gets hard, I quit. You don't quit, you can't, _because _nothing is easy! You stick with it, and you never give up! That's your gift."

Lassiter paused. "My gift."

"Yes!" Shawn said, sensing a break in the wall. He tried again to get away from the muscle, but didn't succeed, and this time felt the press of a gun dig into his neck. "Lassie," he choked.

The moment lasted forever. Lassie seemed to turn over their conversation for possible truth, tilting his head to look at it sideways. He stayed where he was though, kneeling on the ground and pointing his own gun at himself like he'd forgotten it was there. Then - and Shawn could have sworn he _saw_ the reassuring flash of steel blue as Lassiter looked up and zeroed in on exactly where Shawn was. in an instant, he had taken aim and fired, taking out Shawn's captor before anyone had realised what was happening.

Shawn's whoop of glee was shortlived. Lassiter was still on his knees, hands up, gun safely swinging by the trigger guard in a show of surrender. Lobego stood behind him, pressing a gun into the hollow of Lassie's collarbone, too close to the jugular. Dammit, dammit.

Shawn stepped forward, stalling for time. "Lobego, it's over. The cops are on their way. They'll be here any minute."

"It's not over."

"Oh yeah it is. The whole department knows where we are. There's no way you're escaping the island before they find you. You kidnapped the wrong Head Detective. People _love_ this guy down there, God knows why."

"God knows why," Lassiter repeated, off into his own world again.

Shawn flinched inwardly. Hadn't he just spent the last ten minutes convincing him not to kill himself? "We know everything, Lobego." Shawn took another step forward. "Even if your plan worked now, you have to know there's no way it'd be ruled a suicide. We know about the scotch, how you drugged him to make it look like he was on medication for depression, prescribed by you under your innocent partner in practice's name. That's right. We know about the sham psychologist office-"

"Psychiatrist," Lobego and Lassie answered in unison. Lassie was still out of it. It was unsettling, watching him echo Lobego - proof of just how deeply into Lassie's head Lobego had clawed.

"Whatever," Shawn snapped. "You hoped taking him off cold turkey would plunge him into a deep enough depression that he'd do it himself and you could keep your hands clean, but he didn't break, did he? You had to resort to something else. Something stronger. But the jig is up. We know about the fake email, the fake vacation. We know he didn't stalk Missus Lassiter."

Lassie gasped at the mention of Victoria, and his eyes filled again. But he didn't say anything or try to get away from Lobego, just dropped his hands to the ground in defeat. _Come on Gus, tell me you got through to Jules._

"You knew she'd complain to her neighborhood watch after seeing Brutus over there around her house-"

"How'd you know my name?" came a voice from the woods.

"Brutus? Really? I was just - anyway. You knew that Lassie would come check it out if he saw a watch report from Victoria's neighborhood with the word stalker in it, so you called in the first one and let the hyper-alert neighborhood watch guy call in the second one, when he could identify Lassie's car patrolling the area. You _knew_ he was going to be away, because you've been watching him for months, waiting for the right moment to strike. The transaction date on his hotel reservation was the same date of his - or should I say _your_ - email to the chief asking for time off, and _furthermore_-"

"FREEZE! SBPD! Drop it! I want your hands where I can see them!"

Shawn looked over. "Dude. Seriously? Right in the middle of my - okay. Fine."

Jules strode forward, bathed in the sudden light of a million cops on a manhunt. Her gun was straight out in front of her, trained on Lobego.

"You okay," Gus whispered, jogging up behind Shawn to watch. "What happened? What's wrong with Lassiter? He's just staring-"

"Shh."

"I said drop it!" Juliet's voice was hoarse, harsh, edging on a scream.

Lobego looked at her, at the guns poking out of the darkness behind her, at the entire department who'd come to find their Head Detective and who were probably pissed as hell. Shawn saw it in his posture, in his expression, that he was going to give up, but not the way Jules needed him to. He didn't have anything left to live for, except to see Lassie dead-

A single shot rang out, then a flurry of movement. Shawn looked at Jules, but she was staring at Lassie - or rather, Lobego, rolling around on the ground clutching his foot. And then time sped back up to normal. Shawn rushed in ahead of the ferocious officers of the SBPD and skidded to a stop on his knees in front of Lassie. Lassiter looked at him, blinking hard. He swiped at his eyes and blinked again, and then he threw his arms around the psychic, kissing him full on the mouth.

Shawn froze, stunned. At a loss, he pulled away and patted the detective awkwardly on the back while Lassie murmured, "you're alive, you're alive." Jules knelt behind him to take the gun from Lassie's hand. She patted Shawn on the shoulder and frowned at him a warning.

"Yeah, I'm alive," Shawn reassured. "You got him. It's cool, big guy. Everything's fine."

"You're alive. You're alive. Oh God, Victoria, you're alive..."

And then Lassie was dead weight in Shawn's arms.

Shawn blinked at the paramedics as they pried the unconscious detective from him, and he touched his mouth as they wheeled Lassie away. "Victoria?" he whispered.

* * *

"Victoria?" Lassie's voice was little more than a groan, but Shawn had been listening hard even while he flirted with the nurses.

"Hey buddy," he said loudly.

Lassie blinked slowly around, then settled on the ceiling. "I... hugged you."

"Uh... sure," Shawn said. He wasn't sure whether he was agreeing to a deal never to mention the smacking of lips, or if Lassie just didn't remember.

"I thought you were her... But that wasn't real."

"Nope, it wasn't."

"She's gone."

"Yeah..." Shawn said. "Sorry."

"Has anyone told her - I should be the one to tell him, if no one has yet. How long have I been-" He stopped, eyes welling. Then he rallied. "I should be the one to tell her father."

Shawn quirked a brow. "I think he knows," he said. "Since he drove her there."

Lassie stared at him for a long moment. "Drove her..." He frowned hard. "What?"

"To her aunt's house? In Bakersfield?"

"No she's - she's dead. Victoria's - dead. Lobego got her, he got her and shot her - her blood-"

The nurse butted in to check on her patient. Lassie looked at his hands like he was afraid of them, and Shawn sucked in a breath as realizaton clicked into place. They'd found a _buttload_ of blue mystic in Lassie's system.

"I need you to calm down, Mr. Lassiter-"

"Detective," Shawn corrected. "She's not dead, Lassie-pants. She's alive. She's staying with her aunt. We called to check in on her, and she's fine. She's fine."

"She's fine," Lassie repeated dully. He looked back up at Shawn. "And you're fine?"

Shawn grinned. "I'm fine."

"Good." Lassie looked away from him, suddenly unable to meet his gaze. "That's... good."

"Uhm, yeah, _I_ think so."

"That's... really good." Lassie looked off, brows wrinkled.

"Everyone's fine. Except Brutus. And Lobego."

"O'Hara-"

"Is fine."

"And Guster-"

"Also fine."

Lassie nodded, then glanced at him again and away. "And you're fine."

"_Yes_."

Lassiter closed his eyes. "I shot him in the foot." Like he was reciting from memory.

"_Yeah_ you did!"

"His memory will be a little hazy for a day or two," said the doctor from the doorway. She swung into the room with a smile, followed by the nurse who'd summoned her. "But it'll come back. The drug you were exposed to is supposed to have a very clarifying effect." She turned to Shawn. "The hallucinatory effect should be gone by now, and soon he'll be able to remember which events were real and which weren't, but he'll be more emotional than usual until it's been worked out of his system."

"In other words, now is the best time to ask him embarrassing questions," Shawn guessed gleefully.

"He's in a vulnerable state," she confirmed with a sly grin. "I'll be back to check on you in a bit." She tilted her head. Shawn followed her. "I want to caution you that Detective Lassiter _has_ started to remember things. You need to be careful with how you proceed."

Shawn raised a brow. "How I proceed?"

The doctor narrowed her eyes at him. "Yes. If you're as good as they say, you already know what I'm talking about, Mr. Spencer."

Shawn frowned and looked back over at Lassiter. She knew something he didn't, but all that meant was that he _should _know and just hadn't looked yet. When she left the room, Shawn turned fully to really take in the scene, flashing from item to item - no get well anythings, not from anyone yet, but Jules' overnight bag was already there waiting for her to show up in fifteen minutes to take her shift at Lassie's bedside which meant she'd been there and left again rather than hang out. Gus was taking his shifts with Shawn, but he'd mysteriously vanished to get them both some coffee twenty minutes earlier. Lassie still wasn't able to look Shawn in the face, but he'd asked whether Shawn was okay like sixteen times and oh my god -

Lassie was blushing. Probably remembering - Shawn grinned. He flipped out his phone and called Gus. "Hey, buddy. Can you go out to that taco place on Mercy Street for me?" Once his instructions had been relayed, he cleared his throat. Now that he was thinking about it, he felt the warmth of embarrassment flood his own face as well, but it didn't matter. Because he remembered. Just before Lassie had passed out, he remembered the hands around his neck, the flash of recognition in Lassie's eyes before they were clouded by hallucination again - he'd called him Victoria, but he knew. He knew. On some level, he knew who he'd been kissing.

Shawn settled into a chair at Lassie's bedside, intent on taking full advantage of the fifteen minutes he had before Jules came back in for her turn.

* * *

**Two days later**

"Hey, you're awake."

"Of course I'm awake," Carlton grumped, scribbling in a file folder. "It's daytime."

O'Hara twisted her mouth up. "Who gave you that? You're supposed to be resting. You're in the _hospital_."

"Crime waits for no man, O'Hara."

"I'm gonna kill Buzz," she grumbled jokingly. "Listen. Chief says you can come back whenever you like, but it's desk duty for at least a week."

"A week?" he whined. "That's the most ridiculous - what am I supposed to do for a week?"

"Take it off," she suggested. "Take two. It's recommended. An actual vacation. Go fishing? For real this time."

"I'm never taking a vacation again."

Juliet nodded and sat. "So... how do you feel?" she tested.

"I feel..." he began thoughtfully. Then he leveled his glare on her and said, "like I wish people would stop asking me that. I'm _fine_."

"You're fine? Really. Cuz I'm not."

Carlton frowned. "O'Hara..."

"I'm really not." She shook her head at him and put her hand over his. "Shawn told you what happened? What we thought you were - I thought-"

Carlton blew out a breath and tried not to look embarrassed or annoyed. Spencer had spilled the story almost as soon as he'd opened his eyes; before he could even figure out where he was or why his head felt like a huge cotton swab, Spencer had been there to give him all the gory details and ask all the mortifying questions and make some wild accusation that - he preferred not to think about.

"O'Hara," he said, unsure how he was supposed to comfort her. _He_ was the one in the hospital for cripes' sake.

"I thought you were dead," she interrupted. "I thought you were - ready to give up. And I yelled at Shawn for not caring and I snapped at Buzz and I made the chief take over all my other duties just to find you because I thought - I - I was lost. In not knowing, in 'what if' and I'm not okay. Because now I just keep thinking we - we came so close to-"

"O'Hara. It's okay." He turned his hand under hers over to entwine their fingers. It was a bit overly intimate, but he figured he'd take it for the team. "Look. Now we're even."

"Even?"

"For the last month and a half. For what if. Came so close."

He watched the realization dawn on her. It was embarrassing. But maybe it was an aftereffect of the - whatever the doctor had said. He'd still been "tripping" when he'd been told, but he remembered feeling everything click into place at the time. The clarity of thought, even though it'd pulled him down into deep, if artificial, despair, had forced him to realize some things for himself.

Mercifully, O'Hara just nodded and the topic was dropped. Mutual affection and concern over each other's survival didn't have to mean the complete breakdown of professionalism, after all. Carlton blew out a breath in relief.

"So I'm supposed to debrief you," she said.

Carlton nodded. "I don't remember a whole lot." She frowned at him, so he corrected hastily: "I mean, I don't have a good sense of the time. I remember what happened, but not how much time passed. And... I can work out what was real and what was... you know."

O'Hara smiled gently at him; it was infuriating.

"Just give her time," she said. "She's really rattled, and she almost lost you."

"She thought I- Can we not talk about this?"

"Okay," O'Hara said quickly, backing off. "No problem."

Carlton frowned. "You don't have to treat me like I'm breakable. Dammit O'Hara-"

"I know you're not breakable, Carlton," she said. "I just don't want to make things harder for you. Why do you think I haven't brought up Shawn?"

"What?" Carlton snapped, vaguely panicked. "What about him?"

O'Hara narrowed her eyes. "Nothing."

Carlton pursed his lips. His first day in the hospital was still foggy, but he remembered hand holding and Spencer not being as much of an ass even for all of the horrifying implications. And a great wonderful sense of relief that made him want to cry buckets like a namby.

"O'Hara, I-" he said, then stopped.

"We can talk about it later," she said with a smile. She had had a thing for Spencer - Carlton wasn't sure what was happening with the fake psychic, and... well, him, but if anyone understood even a little the situation he found himself in now, it would be O'Hara. Well. Maybe not his exact situation.

"I don't know if..." he began again. But she had her little nose scrunched up in the expression he knew meant that she didn't really want to talk about it and he wondered if she didn't _still_ harbor romantic intentions toward Spencer. In which case, he was off the hook and didn't have to talk about it.

"Carlton. It's fine." She waved it off. "Whatever... this is." She raised her brows and watched him. "Maybe it's even... _good_."

Carlton swallowed nervously. "Okay... Okay. Uhm... thanks." He nodded. "Thanks." He frowned. "I don't-"

"Just do it. Nobody cares. If that's what you want to do." She plastered a smile onto her face, and after a moment, it even seemed genuine. She put her hand over his. "Look, Carlton. You really worried us, and I'm glad you're okay. I care a lot about you, and I want you to be happy."

He frowned at her suspiciously.

"Hasn't anyone ever said that to you?" she wondered. He pursed his lips together. "Well it's true. When I thought you might actually be unhappy enough to do something drastic, it was terrifying. I never want to worry like that again."

Carlton nodded. "Oh... kay then. Thanks."

She nodded back, and her smile really _was_ genuine. "You're welcome. Now. Debriefing."

Carlton closed his eyes and breathed deep. "Okay. Fine. I left the station at around 7:30." He looked up for confirmation of his memory, breathing a sigh of relief when she nodded, scribbling it down. "I arrived at the hotel - uh, Fairfield Inn - at around 9:00..."

* * *

"Back to his old self," Shawn said, standing outside Lassie's hospital room.

"Think so?" Victoria said from behind him.

Shawn turned to face her. "Certainly sounds like it." He paused. "You should go in."

"I can't. How could I face him? How could I have thought he'd - after the way we met..."

Shawn smiled. "Come on. We all know Lassie- ter, _Detective _Lassiter isn't ya know, exactly-"

"Sane?" Gus offered, coming up to them with three cups of coffee. Shawn and Victoria each took one.

"I wasn't going to say 'sane'," Shawn said, elbowing Gus. "I was going to say... short. He's not exactly short. What? He isn't!"

Victoria and Gus looked at each other, then back into Lassiter's room, where he lay, awake and whole and ready to tear someone a new butthole. Victoria smiled. "That's part of what I loved - love about him. He's reliable. Dependable. Dedicated to - well, to whatever he wants to be dedicated to. When it's you, you're the only thing that matters."

Shawn raised a brow, clearing his throat. So many things had become clearer after his little conversation with Lassie his first day in the hospital. Privy to Lassie's most guarded secrets and... his obsessive nature and how often he thought about the ways in which Shawn could get himself killed - coming after him after he'd been kidnapped by a psychopath, as for example - and Lassie's voice as he recounted the dread he felt every time Shawn got mixed up in the violent business of police work because - and this was important to Shawn's future - he _cared_.

But if he felt awkward talking to Lassie's ex-wife while having mixed feelings about a somewhat juicy smooch planted on him by her ex-husband, she didn't notice.

"But what does it say about how he feels about me? That he would dream up this whole scenario-"

"Detective Lassiter wasn't in his right mind," Gus interrupted. "2-CT-7 is a powerful hallucinogenic drug, laced with God knows what else."

"What Gus is saying is that Lassie saw you being murdered because - because of guilt, because you're important to him, because he was crazy depressed and thinking only about the stuff he fears most. Not being able to save the people he cares about."

Ex-Missus Lassiter watched through the window. After a moment, Lassie looked away from Jules in irritation, only to catch all three of them watching him. He and Victoria locked eyes for only a moment before he saw Shawn standing next to her and frowned in suspicion, but Victoria cleared her throat and looked away, busying herself with her bag before saying, "Tell him I- I have to go."

Shawn watched her leave. "Well I get why they got married now," he said. "Not exactly forthcoming with the emotional attachment, is she?"

"You're one to talk, Shawn," Gus said, gingerly sipping his coffee.

"Dude, _I_ am a kind and loving soul."

"You're gonna have to be," Gus quipped knowingly.

Shawn frowned. "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

"Oh, nothing." He smiled at Lassiter through the window sugary sweet. "Just, I don't know how you're gonna do it."

Shawn watched Gus watch Lassie, then narrowed his eyes. "You know-?"

"Please Shawn. Like you could hide it from me. Besides, I know what aftershave you wear, and that's not it. You can thank the super sniffer."

"I hate that thing. I really do."

"So much for a kind and loving soul."

* * *

**Two Weeks Later**

Carlton skipped up the steps into the lobby of the station. His stomach rolled at the thought of facing the people who'd had to come _rescue_ him, but O'Hara had assured him that the only people who knew how close he'd come to offing himself were herself and the chief, and of course Spencer.

Spencer. Ugh. The whole thing - the _whole_ thing - was still embarrassing, and he was hoping to steamroll right over it by ignoring anything had happened.

Unfortunately, he hadn't quite gotten around to giving Spencer the memo. The _fake_ psychic's irritating bellow echoed across the room from where he sat _on_ Carlton's desk, telling a story about - oh, God, he heard his name.

"I can see it all clearly!" Spencer claimed, fingertips to his temple like he was having a vision. "He runs this way and that, evading his kidnappers even through the haze of delirium! He's almost free, he's hiding, but they find him. Oh God! He knows he's going to lose the fight - he's already injured and weak, so he drops this-" Spencer brandished the taco wrapper that Carlton had dropped in the river. "To lead me right to him! And then he fights like a man possessed! But they get him, and they keep him, but our Head Detective is smart, oh yes!"

The younger officers sitting around Shawn were wide-eyed as they listened. Officers Carlton hadn't bothered learning the names of. Older officers stood around with coffee, trying not to look like they were listening. Even O'Hara sat at her desk, transfixed by Spencer's account. Carlton stepped up behind her and lightly touched her on the shoulder to let her know he was there without causing a scene. She jumped and looked up. "Welcome back," she mouthed silently, then shrugged herself out of responsibility for the dramatic retelling and looked back at Spencer.

"He keeps them at bay, no matter what they try, staying alive, staying alert, because he knows we're out there looking, using the clues he's left for us!" Spencer hopped off the desk, hands in front of him to illustrate. "They lead me to him, vision after vision, to a cabin where he's been held for days, without food, without water. And just as we're about to make our escape, I'm taken hostage! Like - _this!" _He grabbed Guster from behind, by the throat, and the sight of it brought back gut-roiling memories. "But the bedraggled-"

"Bedraggled?" Guster hissed.

"Yes. I do know some words," Spencer hissed back. Carlton rolled his eyes. "The bedraggled detective, through the dark, through the dizzyness of hunger and ouchiness, raises his gun and takes aim! He fires! I'm free!" He pushed Guster away with a flourish. "But Lassie's stuck! And you all know what happened next."

A younger officer raised his hand. Spencer stopped short, raising a brow. "Uh... yes?"

"Detective Lassiter shot him in the foot!"

Spencer rolled his eyes. Carlton snickered. "Yes. Yes he did." But Carlton's snicker had snagged the attention from the storytelling jackass and suddenly there were a million eyes on him.

"All right," he grouched, but he could feel a smile threatening. He tamped it down. "Is this or is this not a police station? Everyone back to work!" He cut through the crowd to get to his desk.

"Lassie pants!"

"Not now, Spencer. I sort of have a lot of work to catch up on."

"I just wanted to say thanks."

Carlton turned to Spencer, but the fake psychic's energy was more contagious than usual, and Carlton couldn't keep up the grouchiness. His shoulders slumped. "Look, that story-"

"I know the taco wrapper thing was an accident," Spencer interrupted. "But I like to think of the truth as whatever sounds better."

Carlton scowled. "Spencer-"

"But the rest of my story? Totally true." He turned to survey the rest of the station, bustling around on their Head Detective's orders. "And as far as they'll ever know? That's the whole thing."

Carlton tilted his head doubtfully. "You're saying you're not- planning to..."

Spencer grinned. "Tell the sordid details of our two week vacation? I'd _love_ to. But I won't."

"No you _absolutely _won't," Carlton growled. "I _meant_ tell anyone about the - what you heard that night, how I nearly-"

"Ooooh that." Spencer shrugged. "I've told that story at least seventeen times just this morning. Can't change it now. Who'd believe me?"

"Only an idiot would believe anything you say, Shawn." Carlton smiled grimly.

"Yeah. Thank God you're an idiot," Spencer quipped, then grinned like a mischievous little elf and bolted.

But Carlton wasn't giving chase. He sat at his familiar desk, a desk like home, and watched the psychic skip through the lobby. Yeah, he agreed. Thank God.


End file.
